THIS. IS. WHY. YOUR. CHANNEL. IS. PURE. GOLD. Man, thank you... I discovered this composer (in this channel) some months ago and now I can't get enough of him I'm so grateful, really thanks again.
Rautavaara believed that when he was a child he was visited by angels when he slept. I wonder what he thought of Joan of Arc. Of course she claimed angels spoke to her. She led victorious armies. Rautavaara wrote beautiful music.
Rautavaara's music has that ever continuous flow of Darkness to light with such respect to there appropriate functions, it really is music of the Universe!
This concerto was commissioned by Russian Pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, who worked on the score with Rautavaara. There is a RU-vid video of their discussions around the concerto. Quite interesting. I will try to put a link here at some point. Love this work
Ashkenazy... isn't he one of the most legendary pianists of the 20'th century? Didn't realize Rautavaara was that famous. Or maybe Ashkenazy just had good taste.
This was the first piece I heard by Rautavaara, and the ending had a profound impact on the trajectory of my own compositions. Thanks so much for bring this full circle for me so I could finally see the score ;)
The first movement is the most beautiful thing I have heard for about 40 years! Dare not continue for fear of losing this superbly tuneful late 20th century work!
@@PeterLunowPL Peter - the first was so wonderful, I was unable to continue. Here I am arguing about Britten and Tippett in the UK (I mean intellectually, in the UK, I am in Georgia). Here is a work to which either would have genuflected! And where are you?
The beginning of the piece slightly reminds me of Ives' Central Park in the Dark, the timbre of strings is just so similar. However, another great composition by Rautavaara with majestic yet mysterious feeling. Thank you for uploading it.
I wish I'd discovered Rsutavaara's music long before recently. His sound world is immensely impressive and he has a hallmark of his own that is so suffused with a primitive Nordic earthiness and singular to him. His symphonic compositions are sensory rollercoasters.
Check out Ravel's piano concerto (D - major), and piano concerto by Ralph Vaughan Williams - they are equally beautifull and touching (personal opinion).
Thank you so much for this upload. Young composers like me cannot afford to purchase every score we want to study and I have been spending hours after hours studying & playing this piece from your video :)
my favourite of the 3 piano concertos. He truly has his own voice in this one, cutting out all the complexity and getting to the core of his wonderful talent and soul.
Like the first light of dawn, this music opens your eyes to new promises and to all the wonders of nature. Evocative of powers beyond observation, these pieces pull the strings of the heart, attract nostalgia and awaken the loves, the skinned lives and torpor of the sleeping watchmen
"I would also like to think that my compositions are rather like ‘English gardens’, freely growing and organic, as opposed to those that are pruned to geometric precision and severity." -Rautavaara, on his 1999 composition "Autumn Gardens". Both Rautavaara's process and music are inspiring. Also, I have to imagine that Jacob Collier must have heard this at some point in his life, the similarities between it and Djesse Vol. 1 are too significant to be coincidence.
Thank you so much for uploading this, I didn't even know the Rautavaara had a 3rd concerto... You're definitely one of the best classical music channels and please keep going like this!
Thank you very much for this piece. I comment a bit late since i’ve been listening it on your channel for 4 months. I know it sounds cliché, but this (-how to call this piece of brilliant creativity, marvel, and transcendental grandeur) masterpiece changed my life in a way. I love it very much, and without you, i probably wouldn’t have discovered Rautavaara. Thank you very much
@@paeffill9428 it's the link I have on the comments above, also boosey and hawkes just put it up for sale last month or so. It comes to a total of about $110 if your in the U.S because it takes 3 companies to get it to the U.S.
Thank you very much for uploading this (for uploading all that you do really). Over the past few years I've been journeying deeper and deeper into the realm of underplayed and forgotten art music, and this composer has been one of my favorite recent discoveries. Every once in a while I come across a composer who I adore, but I don't know why I do - Rautavaara is one such composer. There's something in his music I'm quite fond of but can't really articulate. I'm not terribly well versed in music theory, but can anyone explain to me how someone can write something so seemingly unlistenable like this and make it sound good? What style other than contemporary would this be called?
Something that just struck me - his piano parts in this and his first piano concerto do remind me a bit of Olivier Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'enfant jesus...
Well first of all, his entire musical compositonal style is based on the harmonincal techniques involved in the 1st piano concerto. Also he uses frequently modal writing (idk which modes) and some bits of politonality between major/minor chords: for example the first piano concerto starts with an arpeggio of d major over d minor in the LH while the RH does some cluster chords to add chromatic dissonance and delete complete diatonicism (also the clusters form the basic motif). He uses also distant chord progressions and spice up the harmony adding minor seconds to the top of each chord and also adding non-octave extensions (9ths,11th etc.) like in the percussion concerto. Basically what Rautavaara is doing is pushing tonality to his maximum limits 😁
David Neese also I refer to his style as "neo-impressionism" because his work often present imaginative/dreamy moods to create pictures in the listeners head.
Thanks for the replies 'Maurice Ravel' - that's pretty interesting! Neo-impressionism definitely fits, especially considering his pieces like Vincentiana. His blending of major/minor chords really creates a rather cool effect - it's always crazy when you realize there can be so much genius in purposeful dissonance!
Amazon needs to put together a comprehensive Rautavaara album. I just bought their ones for Ligetti and Imants Kalnins. I'd love to but one for Rautavaara. They just sell them like CD's, still, though, with one or two symphonies per album.
@@Luca-yg5qx If you play it in your piano you'll inmediately notice why. The note G#3/Ab3 is the axis of symmetry and both hands move symmetrically, so sharps in one hand become flats in the other and vice versa
Great music and I really thank the channel for letting me know of him. But me and many people still wonder why he preferred more homophonic full chords language than using counter-point. It really lack in his music. He barely uses any texture rathar than strings full chords and the woodwinds are only there for melodies and brass only when he needs him. Very advanced composer when it comes to tonal harmonic language with a language of his own, that wrote in a pretty simple way his orchestrations for some reason. But it's surprisingly still a great music though. So maybe... Who cares?
I wouldn't call it basic because he does wtites interesting textures in some other pieces of him, and his sonic is very interesting. BTW I wanted to ask you for a long time, do you buy this scores and uploads them, do you copy them to a notation software, or do you actually transcribed this pieces? @@Cmaj7
