RAUTAVAARA, E.: Garden of Spaces / Clarinet Concerto / Cantus arcticus (Stoltzman, Helsinki Philharmonic, Segerstam)

Album review

Einojuhani Rautavaara is arguably Finland's most popular modern composer because of his approachable, neo-Romantic orchestral music; yet his works' consistently somber tone, gray orchestration, and fairly static pacing make them predictable and tedious. Noted for exploiting a variety of methods and for writing in both avant-garde and traditionalist styles, Rautavaara is nonetheless most recognizable for his slow harmonic rhythms and overcast colors, and his monochromatic music is barely disturbed by exciting ideas or startling innovations. When he experiments with aleatoric procedures in Garden of Spaces (1971, revised 2003), Rautavaara is careful to score the interchangeable sections blandly so they slip past each other with the least amount of friction. The pseudo-concerto for taped bird calls and orchestra, Cantus Arcticus (1972), moves quite slowly in its glacial counterpoint and progressions; while the score evokes its subject most aptly, it is still a tedious slog through Rautavaara's austere Scandinavian scenes. Even the Clarinet Concerto (2001), which should be a dynamic showpiece, is dominated by too many stretches of brooding melancholy. Clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, under Leif Segerstam, valiantly try to make the work take off, particularly in the Vivace finale; but the few bravura passages in the solo part are not enough to make this weighty vehicle break free of Rautavaara's gravitational pull.

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