A favorite contemporary composer of mine, and often of my students, is Einojuhani Rautavaara. The Finn with the difficult name – Einojuhani Rautavaara is the closest to the Greek transliteration – was chosen as a young student by Jean Sibelius for studies with a scholarship in the USA, and thus received the torch from the godfather of Finnish music as his successor.
He is a particularly imaginative and prolific creator who wrote, among many other compositions, eight symphonies, fifteen concertos for a solo instrument and orchestra, and nine operas, which are considered the central pillars of his work. Today we will focus on a concerto, specifically for an instrument that does not often have a solo character: the double bass. The Angel of Dusk from 1980 for double bass and orchestra is a rare example of a concerto for a bass instrument and orchestra from the twentieth century that has been incorporated into the instrument’s repertoire. Later, Rautavaara orchestrated the orchestral part for two pianos and percussion in the so-called chamber version.
As for his overall body of work, it is so vast that it cannot be adequately assessed in a short text. You can listen to the following works, with the hope that they will pique your interest in discovering a particularly engaging compositional personality: Cantus Arcticus, a concerto for birds (!) and orchestra (1972, for orchestra with pre-recorded birds). Canción de nuestro tiempo for choir (1993), three songs for mixed choir set to poetry by Federico García Lorca. The third piano concerto, Gift of Dreams (1998, commissioned by the great pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy), and of course, the seventh symphony, Angel of Light (1994), a classic example of his orchestral writing. Opera lovers should listen to the opera Aleksis Kivi (1996) or Rasputin (2003).
With this text, we inaugurate the series of concertos that we will present among other works, as this is the first work of its kind in the current series of texts. The concerto as a form remains perhaps the most popular, especially in the modern era, when the standards and rules of the past have been abolished. As a genre, it developed particularly with the piano and violin, while many concertos have been written for all orchestral instruments – even for those not traditionally belonging to it. The double bass, on the other hand, historically is not one of the pre-eminent solo instruments. It plays a prominent role at the base of the orchestra, both in small string or chamber orchestras and in large, and often complex, twentieth-century symphony orchestras. Its range, moreover, is rather restrictive, especially when collaborating with large and numerous groups of instruments, and specifically in the deeper regions of its sound.
This particular concerto is, as often happens in the world of music, the result of a collaboration between the composer and the Finnish double bass soloist Olli Kosonen. Furthermore, Rautavaara states that he borrowed a double bass and experimented with it, developing new playing techniques. In the first movement (His first appearance), after a brief orchestral introduction, we hear the melody from the double bass, which is often interrupted by orchestral outbursts that gradually increase, forcing the soloist into a dialogue with the orchestra. The composer calls this compositional method a “disturbance technique.” The second movement (His monologue) is an extended double bass cadenza, beginning so softly that it is barely audible. The third movement (His last appearance) begins with the theme in the double bass, accompanied by the orchestra. This is followed by a – very common for the composer – moto perpetuo with complex (6/8) or mixed meters (5/8, 7/8, 8/8), and closes again with the cantilena* from the beginning of the movement in the double bass.
Rautavaara, for much of his career, was a prolific composer; he used the orchestra as it deserves, in a magnificent and masterful way. If you listen to the first movement of the seventh symphony, you will understand. Here, he subordinates what appears to be his nature for the benefit of the solo instrument’s nature, which has neither enormous volume nor a wide range. The orchestration is excellent. Despite the completeness across all instrument families (additionally with harp and celesta), and the plethora of percussion, the solo is rarely overshadowed by the other instruments. Beyond the above, the work is very pleasing to the ear, enjoyable to listen to, and worthy of our attention.
* Cantilena: a simple and melodic extended song. It usually refers to the voice, but in musical jargon, it extends to instruments, meaning a melody in this context.
