Symphony No.6 "Vincentiana" - Einojuhani Rautavaara

Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Max Pommer

I - Starry Night: 0:00
II - The Crows: 19:28
III - Saint-Remy: 25:40
IV - Apotheosis: 33:35

Rautavaara's Sixth Symphony draws a considerable amount of its material from the composer's opera "Vincent", a heavily symbolic, non-linear collage of the life and mind of Van Gogh with libretto penned by the composer. The symphony is divided into the traditional four movements, each one with a subtitle alluding to a painting or an idea from the opera. This is the only of his symphonies to feature a DX-7 synthesiser, for the most part in soloist roles, which are most prominent at the edges of movements with the orchestra filling up the space in between. Meandering quasi-tonal rhapsodies (that as a Rautavaara listener, you either come to love or hate) are freely mixed with passages of extreme atonal/12-tone violence throughout the work, though some of those rows also contribute to the consonant triadic material as well, a Rautavaarian trick.

Among the highlights of the symphony is the combination of the synthesizer and orchestral effects that kick off the work's first movement "Starry Night," a delirious waltz that seems to detonate towards the end of the third movement "Saint-Rémy" (Van Gogh's late life sanitarium), and exultant finale for the last movement "Apotheosis." The second movement, "The Crows," features a haunted refrain, ostensibly drawn from the opera's second act, where Van Gogh, in the company of Gauguin and his brother Theo, experiences a vision of fields "heaving, breaking in waves... writhing like big animals in their death-throes." Squint your ears for the almost inaudible string-section fuzz that blows over the slow chordal theme.

This slight blur becomes an impenetrable smear with the tail end of the Sanitarium waltz, which buckles, then gives way to a blast of electronics and wind-mouthpieces, transmuting some nagging chorus of physicians and art critics into a murder of displeased corvids. Things do come together in the final "Apotheosis," which stems from music written for Vincent's final, triumphal/suicidal paean to light: "The day of the sun! And he who dies today shall never disappear, but will join those who once had the courage to go on and live!" Even here, Rautavaara's characteristically dense orchestration creates a blurry sort of sensory overload.

Picture: A mirroed version of "The Starry Night" (1889) by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh.

Sources: http://unsungsymphonies.blogspot.com/2010/09/vincentiana-two-and-half-van-gogh.html and https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/OD%200819

Видео Symphony No.6 "Vincentiana" - Einojuhani Rautavaara канала Sergio Cánovas