Did you remember to turn your clocks back? As the sun begins to set earlier, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere can feel a spiritual kinship with the Scandinavians.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” it’s autumn in the North countries, as well as in the Nordic soul. We’ll test your limits, not only for lengthening shadows, but also for gratuitous vowels, with music by Danish composer Rued Langgaard and Finnish master Einojuhani Rautavaara.
Langgaard lived from 1893 to 1952. Despite a promising start – born to musical parents, a prodigious childhood, meetings with major conductors, and a symphony performed by the Berlin Philharmonic – his personal and creative eccentricities worked against him.
Perpetually out of step with the times, and particularly with the musical tastes of his countrymen, performances of his works were scarce. He found himself ignored by the musical establishment, with the result that his music really only started to be recognized in the 1960s – 16 years after the composer’s death.
Langgaard was 46 by the time he managed to obtain a permanent job, as an organist at the cathedral in Ribe. It was the oldest town in Denmark, and situated far, far from Copenhagen, the center of Danish musical life. He would die in Ribe at the age of 59.
He wrote 16 symphonies. The fourth of those bears the subtitle “Fall of the Leaf.” Beyond a simple evocation of autumnal nature, complete with thunderstorms, wind and rain, the symphony is one of moods related to, or symbolized, by autumn. The composer originally called the work “Nature and Thoughts.”
Rautavaara, Finland’s grand old man of music, died in July at the age of 87. He studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, under Aare Merikanto, before receiving a scholarship to attend the Juilliard School. Among his teachers in the United States were Vincent Persichetti, Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland. He himself taught for extended periods at the Sibelius Academy.
As a composer, he wrote eight symphonies, 14 concertos, and nine operas, as well as choral, chamber and instrumental music. His most famous piece is probably his “Cantus Arcticus,” for taped bird song and orchestra.
Early on, Rautavaara experimented with serialism (though he was never a strictly serial composer), but in the 1960s, he left all that behind. His mature style is frequently one of austere beauty, marked by lyricism and even luminosity. His later works often bear something of a mystical stamp.
We’ll be listening to music composed in 1999, titled “Autumn Gardens,” Rautavaara’s meditation on beauty in nature and the transience of life. If I were to introduce anyone to the music of Rautavaara, this may very well be the piece I would select. It’s gorgeous and moving.
I hope you’ll join me for “Fall of the Leif,” autumnal meditations from the North, this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
