Review: Cantus Arcticus--Rautavaara's Extraordinary Concerto for Birds!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ย. 2024
- Cantus Arcticus (1972) is one of the great works of twentieth-century music, and one of the very few pieces to successfully integrate taped sounds into the larger orchestra. Unforgettably atmospheric, at times somber, majestic, and transcendental, it's one of those "must-own," unexpected masterpieces that you'll return to often.
Musical Excerpts courtesy of Ondine Records (ODE 1041-2)
I once played in an outdoor performance of this piece. It was in a city park and as the recorded birdsong started some of the birds in the park started to sing along (I am not kidding) and continued through the whole piece. It was one of the most surreal experiences in my life.
I got chills just imagining that...
Glad you did a video on Rautavaara, truly a great composer!
The Cantus Arcticus was the very first Rautavaara piece I had ever heard. I loved the dreamlike atmosphere of the concerto! I would look forward to hearing you survey Rautavaara's eight symphonies in a future video. Thanks, Dave! :)
Rautavaara's 3rd, 7th and 8th are all fabulous works, now I am ordering Cantus Arcticus.
hilarious (the first part), and a great appreciation for a truly great composer who didnt follow the Sibelius path (which is kind of an achievement for a finnish composer), and what a magnificent and atmospheric piece it is (its almost a soundtrack for a black white film about the arctic)...listened to it so many times and i fall immediately under the spell of it each time i hear it...and he wrote so many great things beside this one
I would agree, this music is magical. I have visited Finland once, but anywhere north will do, Scotland, Canada, probably Russia too. The immediacy of the picture painted of the vast watery spaces of these boreal regions is stunning. One of my favourite musical pieces.
A true masterpiece. One of my favorite pieces by anyone. I haven’t seen any information about this but I noticed that the big melody from Cantus Arcticus is also used in this Sonata for Violoncello and Piano, No. 1
This is a wonderful work! I hesitated long to buy the record, because I thought that it MUST be either trash or a Messiaen-imitation, but then I listened to it. And, yes, it's a miracle. And I'm convinced, I know, why it does work: Because Rautavaara avoids genuine singing birds. His tapestry of swans and gulls and other sea birds creates a wonderful atmosphere of man (the warm songs of the orchestra) being alone in the nature (the tape and the woodwinds ornamentations). In fact, I admire this work as one of the most successful man-and-nature-pieces written in the 2nd half of the 20th century. Don't you want to do a talk about the Ondine-Rautavaara-boxes? He was such a great composer! Thank you for turning the attention on him!
A wonderful piece, and I stand astonished that he wrote it in 1972, when the bloop-blip twelve tone/free improv stuff was still in vogue. Like the Jean Ivey piece you describe. I do recall seeing a review of CANTUS ARCTICUS around that time that wrote it off as "new age." Uh... no. And while "think of Autumn and of Tchaikovsky" is pretty funny, I sure appreciate the detailed instructions to the tape operator, which help prevent the birds from either overpowering the orchestra or being overpowered themselves. First time I ever heard Gerhard's third symphony the tape noises were WAY too loud, and I wonder if HIS score has any instructions beyond on and off. (There is a fine recording on Chandos where the tape stuff is better balanced.)
Normally, I shy away from 20th century music, assuming it is on the atonal side, which I've never warmed up to. I've never heard of Rautavaara, but enjoyed the excerpts you played. Thank you for introducing me to something new and unexpectedly enjoyable.
You're welcome. You would enjoy the entire work, I'm sure.
@@davecook8378 Actually Carter was writing very effectively (his Clarinet Concerto is fantastic). I really don't get this wholesale knocking of atonal music. As with any form of music it has good and bad examples. I really enjoy Schoenberg's Five Pieces op 16 (the first movement Premonitions is fantastically exciting, and the second beautifully melancholic), Berg"s Violin Concerto, and Webern"s Six Pieces op.6 (the Langsam Marcia funebre movement is terrifying). Really this type of music has proven itself worthy and shouldn't be frightening the horses anymore!
@@davecook8378 Fair enough....but it was still a significant influence on much music in the 20th Century, for good or bad. Interesting that Stravinsky embraced twelve tone music later in life, but made the pieces so utterly idiomatic (Agon for example).
Couldn’t agree more, about this work. So imaginative. I have Hannu Lintu’s. You couldn’t get more different than this work.
Would you be open to a new series where you share stories of your interactions with so many solists and composers over the history of your career ?
Not just on that topic--I prefer to tell the stories when discussing specific works or other musically related events.
Yes, the Naxos disc is a winner and the R3 is a wonderful homage to Bruckner.
The bird tapes sound appalling compared to the Ondine recording
Let's not get carried away.
I was introduced to this piece in the late 90s and I’m a huge fan of this composer. Funny that I found Cantus Arcticus Brucknerian in its last movement even at the time without knowing his enjoyed Bruckner
So great you have the score. There was a time when one could walk into various publishers' shops in London and buy scores of contemporary music. These days alot of contemporary music is hire only which is deliberately making it unavailable to the public.
Sounds an interesting work. I will listen to his music.
I'd never heard of him until an except from this work turned up on a Jarvi compilation disc that was part of a box set. It's absolutely wonderful and now I have a good few of his works. I gather he is unfortunately no longer with us but the pieces I have heard so far are great.
Great piece ...oh yes his 'Angel of Light' Symphony and the Angel of Dusk (his amazingly effective and beautiful Double-bass concerto) are splendid. As you mentioned Respighi, are you going to review John Wilson's new recording of the Roma triptych? I listened to it on Primephonic, and I'll stick my neck out and say I was seriously impressed - particularly Feste (sounds a much more substantial piece than usual). Sonically splendid too!
Oh yes, I'll get to it.
@@DavesClassicalGuide that sounds ominous! I look forward to it!!
I've loved this work for years; it wrings tears from my eyes, particularly in the last movement, which I would describe as organic (in the natural sense, nothing to do with pipe organs!) because the integration of the birdsong into a mighty orchestral climax is so breathtaking, ensuring that the birds remain equal actors in the musical discourse alongside the orchestral players. One could say that it comes as close as any art music ever has to unifying Nature's creation with that of Man; the religious minded could say that it shows God at work in the music of both man and beast ("all things come from Him and of our own do we give him") but you don't have to be religious to be in awe of it.
I couldn't agree more about Rautavaara's handling of this kind of work. It could so easily have been a cliché, and perhaps history and certain musical schools even look upon it as such, in light of other works composed in the medium since. As you say, however, it exudes a sincerity that other 'instrumental plus tape' works so often lack. It rewards the listener, and can withstand repeated hearings without staling.
Rautavaara's mastery of the orchestra is what made him so great a composer. I believe he studied with Aaron Copland, himself a giant among orchestral composers; just as Copland's work is remarkably evocative of his native land, so Rautavaara's evokes the Arctic territory of his own birth. It takes me back to watching documentaries as a child, about polar birds and other creatures of Northern Europe and the Canadian wilderness. It wasn't my first exposure to Rautavaara - that was via his more recent symphonic poem "On the Last Frontier," an equally evocative and impressive work - but it is a huge favourite and it deserves to live long on the concert platform if impresarios, orchestra managers and festival planners are prepared to promote it.
It's what I call "The Guano Effect." ;)
Whenever I would play this on the radio, which I did on perhaps a half-dozen occasions, I would advise the listener to put Kitty in another room. Lest something or someone get clawed to smithereens.
The first time I heard you beam this from Amherst, I actually pulled my car off the road into a parking lot in Hamp because I had to hear the whole thing and know who composed it. Thanks.
this one deserves a sequels episode
Anyone knows how he treated the original tape for cantus arcticus? I've read that the tape in second mov. is transposed two octaves lower for an eerie effect. Any manipulations to the other two mov.? Any source mentioning the manipulations?
There are moments in Rautavaara’s music where I can’t help thinking of Thelonious Monk. Aside from a certain similarity in tones, there is often what I would describe as an under-pulse in Rautavaara’s compositions that seem to work like the left “striding” hand of an old stride pianist. As the composer was born in 1928, he would have been a young man when Monk, Parker, Powell and all were emerging. Just wondering.
Richard Bois this didn’t occur to me but the comparison is absolutely apt.
Yes I totally agree. He often uses huge “jazzy” minor chords and also quartal harmony. And he likes to juxtapose that with elements of atonality. And the way he voices his harmony is just so beautiful.
Nice to hear a piece of music without the customary Cuckoo appearing. I listened to the Naxos and Ondine recordings and they appear to use different tapes of birds. The Ondine birds sounded clearer and better to my ears. The Naxos birds sounded muffled and to be honest slightly unauthentic.
Yes, Ondine had a refurbished version of the tape.
@@DavesClassicalGuide That explains it. The Segerstam Version is definitely the best. The detail is absolutely magnificent.
Now that you’ve talked about Symphony 3 being a rare example of successful neo-Brucknerism, you’ll have to walk us through some failed attempts. And don’t say Roy Harris, the man was a golden god as far as I’m concerned.
Roy Harris.
@@DavesClassicalGuide very funny!
David Hurwitz 😂 but also 😰. I think Harris was an excellent symphonist.
Roy who?
Do you think he got the idea from Herrmann’s score to The Birds ?
Herrmann did not compose a score to The Birds.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I thought the electronic sounds were by him ?
@@DavesClassicalGuide my mistake. Electronic sound production & composition by Remi Gassmann & Oskar Sala. Herrmann was the sound consultant.