No one can accuse Ondine
of bland design or unimaginative programming.
Their catalogue is a feast of distinctive
repertoire and a celebration of personality.
It is understandable that they should
celebrate their 20th anniversary with
reissuing 20 back catalogue CDs in characterful
birthday sleeves.
Over the years Rautavaara
has spoken to audiences in a variety
of styles. Some of his works are strongly
avant-garde; others are more lyrically
accessible,. Whichever style you encounter
he always orchestrates with pellucid
clarity. The Violin Concerto is
getting on for three decades old. It’s
in two movements the first of which
is extremely lyrical with the violin
often dizzyingly high in its range.
It operates quietly - a picture in sound
of an ice cavern: crystalline, glistening;
The Lark Ascending meditating
on the Berg concerto. The second movement
is more explosive. While this is clearly
a work of the 20th century - written
in part in New York - it is not intimidatingly
so. In both movements the composer keeps
in touch with the Finnish countryside
and especially in the first there are
links with the nature painting of his
remarkable Cantus Arcticus. Oliveira
digs deeply into his role. The work
was written with technical assistance
from Eugene Sarbu whose vibrato-ridden
Sibelius Violin Concerto recording is
well outside my tolerance. I am pleased
that we have the even yet intensely
succulent and poignant tone of Oliveira
to present this work to the world. Isle
of Bliss was written in 1995
for the Espoo Festival. It shows Rautavaara’s
outright rapprochement with the ‘new
lyricism’. It represents an incredible
phantasmal wash of long-lined song from
the strings with woodwind-evoked birdsong;
Hollywood-like in its freedom. Think
in terms of John Barry through Sibelius.
If you enjoyed Valentin Silvestrov’s
almost psychedelic song-in-dreams Fifth
Symphony you need to hear this as well.
Angels and Visitations is
the first work in Rautavaara’s Angel
Series (other instalments include
Angel of Dusk, Playgrounds
for Angels and Angel of Light).
At 6:10 the avian voices of Cantus
Arcticus and an ineluctable Sibelian
undertow are recalled. Other parts of
the work take us back to the composer’s
absorption in avant-garde expressive
language with jangling textures and
groaning dramatic effects including
a ‘goblin shout’ from the gentlemen
of the orchestra at 9:10; rather more
chilling than Delius’s similar effect
in Eventyr. Everything is poetically
bound together with dreamy passages
recalling Hovhaness’s most extreme explorations
in quietude as well as Holst’s otherworldly
Neptune and Betelgueuse.
Shortish playing time
but the artistic journey is powerful
. The commitment and sympathetic insights
of engineers, conductor and orchestra
are patent.
Rob Barnett
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Elmar Oliveira (violin)