The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Prize-winning Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara has died at 87
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By Jacob Stockinger
He was a contemporary composer who wasn’t afraid to change or adapt his compositional style in radically differently ways, and who found a broad public as well as great respect from fellow composers and performers.
He was Einojuhani Rautavaara (below, in a photo from Getty Images), who was considered the most important composer of his country since Jean Sibelius, and he died at 87 this past week.
Here is a fine summary and obituary by Tom Huizenga for the Deceptive Cadence blog on NPR or National Public Radio.
And here, in the YouTube video below, is the piece, complete with recorded bird songs recorded by the composer — Cantus Arcticus, Op, 61, from 1972 — that Rautavaara is perhaps best known for. It is also the piece that his fellow Finn, conductor Osmo Vanska, now the music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, says he most admires.
Tags: Arts, blog, Cantus Arcticus, choral music, Classical music, Compact Disc, contemporary music, Deceptive Cadence, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Finland, Finn, Finnish, Getty Images, Jacob Stockinger, Jean Sibelius, Madison, Minnesota Orchestra, Music, National Public Radio, New Music, NPR, Orchestra, Osmo Vanska, Tom Huizenga, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, vocal music, YouTube
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