Hello Monica and Chris, I thought it high time I changed my biography. It was very fun at the time, but somehow I do not think it really reflects my achievements. It might look like the biography of someone else, but it is not: I simply added things which before I had omitted and vice versa. Would it be possible to place this new one in place of the other one? Here it is: The "Donate" button is, of course, recent and remains as it is.
It's been replaced. What are you playing by Rautavara then ? I toyed with his Icons Op. 6 but could not quite decide (apart from the first) whether I really liked them or not.
Thank you. I do not know about you, but I cannot help feeling that his music would be vastly improved without losing any of its character by simply weeding out the dissonance. I find very often that is what ruins his music to me. Look at the opening of his first piano concerto, but I am sure it would be much more impressive without that endless row of clusters on the right hand. The fisrt work of his I heard, however, is the one which remains my favourite and that is his setting of the Vigil of St. John, commissioned by the Finnish Orthodox Church. I suppose that is what makes me look for other works of his which are congenial and have recently ordered a CD with his music for violin and piano. Some of it I have heard on YouTube and can say that, while unmistakably by Rautavaara, does not deliver a punch to the ear. I am working on his op 1, the Fiddlers, which is rather fun (and there also, I have found out that dropping (unintentionally) some of the seconds seems to make little difference to the harmony in some places, while in others playing the wrong second creates a clash which is absent from the correct chord.). I have tried recording it, but with my piano... While I can handle the speed (apart from passages where the impossible is asked, such as playing a melody "saltando" — this seems from a recording I have heard, and which is pointedly slower than necessary, to be the technique used in playing quavers in Bach's slow movements: neither legato nor staccato) I lose complete control over the monster and hell camps free.
Yes that concerto is rather tiring and relentless. I can't say that it does much for me either. His Cantus Arcticus, on the same Naxos CD I find endlessly fascinating though. Also on that CD is the 3rd symphony which is a good listen and not all too stridently dissonant.
Is it the third? I thought it was the fourth. I bought it at a time for my father, so I cannot remember, but I do remember the concerto and the Cantus. His third piano concerto seemed to have something to say, as well as Autumn Gardens.
