Tapiola Sinfonietta Orchestra conducted by Jean-Jacques Kantorow
I - Quasi grave: 0:00
II - Vivace: 9:03
III - Largo: 11:25
IV - Presto: 15:41
Rautavaara's Second Symphony was composed in 1957, written just a year after the First, with an intimate, chamber-music like character. The first sketches for it can be found in the Seven Preludes for Piano from the year 1956. If twentieth century Russian influences were felt in the First Symphony, the shadow of an expatriate Russian, Igor Stravinsky, may be found in the Second, particularly in the rhythmic motives of the second and fourth movements.
In it, Rautavaara applies the new dissonant techniques learned, derived from dodecaphonic music. The symphony was also revised in 1984. The changes made are especially in its orchestration, using a larger orchestra, increasing the color especially in fast movements. The work is also extremely condensed, being the second shortest symphony of the composer.
The own composer describes it with the following words: "The symphony is also an expression of the stylistic crisis which followed myyears ofstudy in New York. Its dissonance and free tonality already seem to predict my forth coming avant-garde period. From the beginning of its life this symphony has often been called "Nordic"; its landscape is rugged yet limpid, in the third move-ment mystical and strange, and the end of the finale is a wild, raging dance."
The first movement, marked Quasi grave, opens with an austere theme born in the lower strings. The woodwinds enter briefly before relinquishing the stage to the lower strings once more. Primary among the harmonic building blocks are the tritone, a perfect fifth, and a minor ninth. The thematic tissue moves gropingly forward as horns enter and the timbre grows brighter and the pulsations more insistent. Solo winds appear and fade. A vibraphone adds its accents to the texture and sighing winds fall gently in glissandi here and there. While Stravinsky is in evidence, so also are the American composers from whom Rautavaara learned.
The second movement, Vivace, is very short. A kind of dissonant dance is presented by the orchestra, which moves jaggedly in fragmented rhythms. The orchestration is colorful, with the intervention of percussion. Chords build and diminish and a flutter-tongued flute dances in and out. The final section is slower and more delicate, ending severely.
The third movement, Largo, begins with a timpani roll and a solitary bass clarinet. The Strings sound on a single note and gradually expand to an atonal, wide-intervalled motive. The atmosphere is serious with mysterious interventions of the acute elements of the orchestra, in contrast to the atonal melody developed by the bass. The tension increases until its sudden break, returning us to the calm of the first part. More glissandi are heard amidst the winds and the section ends in ghostly fashion in the low winds.
The finale, Presto, like the second movement is very brief. It begins with mallets assisting in voicing a jabbing rhythmic pattern carried then throughout the orchestra. The music is hectic, reminiscent of Stravinsky in the use of rhythms and percussion. The drumbeats come faster, interjections come from each section, and the movement bolts to an abrupt end.
Having studied in Switzerland with Vogel, Rautavaara traveled to Germany in 1958 to study at the Cologne Academy of Music with Rudolf Petzold. He continued to learn the contemporary techniques that he will later experience personally in his works. He writes works with serial tendencies reminiscent of Alban Berg. From his graduation in 1957 he works as an independent professor at the Sibelius Academy, until 1959. He then occupies a position as a musician in the archive of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.
Picture: A modified fragment of "Three Musicians" (1921) by the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso.
Sources: www.historiadelasinfonia.es/naciones/la-sinfonia-en-finlandia/los-compositores-mas-notables/rautavaara/, www.allmusic.com/composition/symphony-no-2-sinfonia-intima-mc0002383124 and www.chandos.net/chanimages/Booklets/BI0910.pdf
5 ноя 2019
