| Cantus Arcticus | |
|---|---|
| Concerto for Birds and Orchestra | |
| byEinojuhani Rautavaara | |
 The first seven bars of the first movement | |
| English | Arctic Song |
| Opus | 61 |
| Year | 1972 (1972) |
| Period | Contemporary classical |
| Genre | |
| Style | |
| Occasion | Firstdoctoral conferment ceremony ofOulu University |
| Commissioned by | Oulu University |
| Dedication | Urho Kekkonen |
| Published | 1972 (1972):Helsinki |
| Publisher | Edition Fazer |
| Duration | c. 18:00 |
| Movements | 3 |
| Scoring | Experimental |
| Instrumental | Orchestra andtape-recorder |
| Premiere | |
| Date | 18 October 1972 |
| Location | Oulu |
| Conductor | Stephen Portman |
| Performers | Oulu Symphony Orchestra |
Cantus Arcticus, also known asConcerto for Birds and Orchestra, is a three-part orchestral work by the Finnish composerEinojuhani Rautavaara that incorporatestape recordings ofbirdsong.
Commissioned byOulu University for its firstdoctoral conferment ceremony,Cantus Arcticus waspremiered inOulu on 18 October 1972 by theOulu Symphony Orchestra conducted byStephen Portman. Thescore was published the same year.[1] The work is dedicated toUrho Kekkonen, who waspresident of Finland at the time.[1]: 3
Cantus Arcticus has enjoyed wide popularity.[2]: 200 The reasons cited include the work's resemblance to familiartonal music; the way it links music with nature by using recorded birdsong; the novelty of combining such recordings with a live orchestra; and its association with an idealised andexoticised version of Finland's culture and landscape.[3]: 255–259 The work's appeal is also shown by its use in other musical contexts, includingjazz compositions andfilm music.[3]: 257
In 1971, Oulu University commissioned Rautavaara to write acantata for performance at its firstdoctoral conferment ceremony the following year. The university library sent literature about the Oulu region to the composer, but no text appealed to him,[4]: 331 and the choir that was due to take part was "overworked and not in good vocal trim": this led him to use recordings of birdsong instead of human voices.[5]
Rautavaara copied some of the bird sounds heard inCantus Arcticus from thesound-effects collection ofFinnish Radio. He also visited thewetlands ofLiminka Bay in northern Finland to record the sounds ofcranes and other birds directly. The performance tape was assembled from these sources at the composer's home using two tape-recorders,[6] andCantus Arcticus was completed on 13 March 1972.[4]: 334
Cantus Arcticus: Duet for Birds and Piano, atranscriptionarranged by the pianist Peter Lönnqvist,[7]: 168–169 was published in 2017[8] accompanied by downloadable recordings of the birdsong to be used in its performance.[9]
The score specifies the following orchestra:[1]: 2
Cantus Arcticus has three movements:[6]The Bog,[d]Melancholy, andSwans Migrating.
The opening bar of the first movement is labelled "Think of autumn and of Tchaikovsky".[1]: 3 Evoking an atmosphere in this way, rather than referring to anarrative, is a feature of many of Rautavaara's works.[11]
The movement begins with a solo for two flutes played at a moderateandantetempo. The flutes follow each other in a birdsong-like melody, with the theme based on achromatic scale.
The recorded birdsong forms the leading voice towards the end of the solo, and becomes louder as the woodwinds enter: these also imitate the sounds of birds.[12]: 88 The muted trombone, entering just after the woodwinds, is instructed to "Try to imitate the staccato sound of the crane[13] heard later on the tape".[1]: 4 The score states that while the sequence of instruments and the repeated group of notes played in this section "must be as written", the conductor can decide the intervals between them.
Next, the first bassoon and cello enter with a lyrical, melancholic theme[6] that, according to the composer, "might be interpreted as the voice and mood of a person walking in the wilds".[10] This reaches a crescendo with the full orchestra before taken forward by the cellos.
At the very end of the movement, the clarinet plays a variant of the flutes' solo from the opening bars: this creates symmetry in the movement by building a bridge back to its beginning.[12]: 89 The conductor can choose when the tape-recording, the clarinet, and the strings stop, and whether the music concludes in B or F.[1]: 16
According to the score at the start of the second movement, "The orchestra pauses, giving the audience time to notice that the birds on channels 1 and 2 are imitating each other".[1]: 17 The bird featured is ashore lark, and, states the composer, its song[14][15] has been slowed to lower thepitch by twooctaves, making it a "ghost bird"[10] and he himself a "creative ornithologist".[16]: 259
After about a minute, the violins lead the strings – allmuted – in a series of ascending, falling, and constantly changingchords centred onA minor. The woodwinds enter soon after, and are joined by the brass in a crescendo before the music dies away.[6]
The use of muted strings, the paucity ofexpression markings within the score, and the lack of brass and percussion for most of the movement, all contribute to evoking "coldness, or an open location, that channels into a larger expression of melancholy".[3]: 267
In the third movement, the orchestra divides into four groups:I in the score refers to the violins and violas; the woodwinds areII; horns, cellos and double basses,III; andIV contains the harp and celesta.[1]: 21–30 The score states that these groups "are mutually synchronized only when so indicated",[1]: 30 giving the movement analeatory flavour.[3]: 267
The recorded sound ofwhooper swans begins the movement, and continues till its end. After half a minute or so, the strings (groupI) join the swans, playing regular, gradually swelling chords that herald the entry ofII's clarinet and flute. These play the same melody that the flute duo opened the first movement with, helping bind the three-part work into a whole.[12]: 90
More woodwinds join the repetitive, birdsong-likefigurations, which then combine with a theme performed byIII, introduced by the horns.[1]: 26–27 The harp and celesta (IV) join soon after, and the orchestra becomes more synchronised from this point on.[3]: 268 The overall effect has been compared to "the fluid motion of one mass ... made up of separate parts, resembling birds in flight",[3]: 268 with the four groups "[occupying] the same space, overlapping without colliding – coordinated, but not perfectly in synch".[17]
The theme is repeated five times, with the trombone imitating the swans during the last repetition. A crescendo near the end creates the impression of an ever-increasing number of birds: as the composer puts it,[16]: 259 "[T]he swans' trumpeting turns into crazy glissandos – I imagined them flying straight into the scorching sun ...".[e] The piece concludes with a modified, descending version of the theme as the sounds of swans and orchestra slowly fade away.[6]
Rautavaara composedCantus Arcticus during hisneoromantic period. This stretched from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, and followed a stage when he had favouredtwelve-tone serialism (dodecaphony) in his compositions,[2]: 198 like most Finnish composers of the time.[18]: col 2 Cantus Arcticus appeared as the wave ofmusical modernism that arose in Finland afterWorld War II receded, and an interest by composers inneo-tonality emerged.[3]: 254
Rautavaara's neoromantic works have been described as the outcome of a continuation, within a newly adoptedneotonal framework, of a process of stylistic exploration.[19]: 44 The works immediately precedingCantus Arcticus (1972) share its experimental nature:[20]: 4 they includeApollo contra Marsyas (1970), a jazzy,musicals-inspiredcomic opera;True & False Unicorn (1971), acantata with elements fromjazz andspirituals that features acollage ofnational anthems; andVigilia (1972), a version ofFinnish Orthodox Church music.[2]: 199–200
Cantus Arcticus has also been grouped with works where Rautavaara, after breaking withdodecaphony, experimented with tightly controlledaleatoric techniques. These includeGarden of Spaces (1971),[21][f] andHommage à Zoltán Kodály (Bird Gardens) (1982).[19]: 57–58
Compositions using pre-recorded sounds provide a further context. Rautavaara had first used tape-recordings inTrue & False Unicorn (1971),[7]: 196 and went on to use tape in three operas – The Abduction of the Sampo (1974),Vincent (1990) andThe House of the Sun (1990) – as well as in several short pieces of commissionedelectronic music.[7]: 249 Tape became a trend among composers in the 1970s, though employing the sounds of animals was uncommon:[7]: 67 a rare example from this period isAnd God Created Great Whales (1970) byAlan Hovhaness, which features recordedwhale songs.[3]: 255
The only prior example of an orchestral work requiringrecorded birdsong is thought to be thetone-poemPines of Rome (1924) byOttorino Respighi, where the end of thethird movement is scored for a briefphonographic recording of anightingale.[12]: 88
The first review ofCantus Arcticus appeared inHelsingin Sanomat, a Finnishnewspaper of record, shortly after the premiere in Oulu in 1972, and drew a comparison with Rautavaara'sVigilia:[23]
[S]omething is still missing; perhaps a greater contrast between the different parts, or also the deeper development of each of them. Much more could have been made of the birds' part, in particular by electronic means, but perhaps Rautavaara does not feel this method is familiar enough to him. It is also difficult to avoid an association with American widescreen cinema. A good commissioned work, ... but not a landmark in Rautavaara's output – and far away, at least, from the magnificently inspired Vigilia.
Commenting on the first performance in Finland's capital, Helsinki, three years later,[24] a reviewer from the same newspaper noted thatCantus Arcticus was "downright modern in its style but remarkably timeless in its expression",[g] described the work as containing a "mystical, slightly repressed, perhaps even pessimistic train of thought",[h] and praised its "delicate, colourful and expressive soundscape".[i]
The first commercial recording, onvinyl, was released in 1981 byFinlandia Records.[25] In its review,The New York Times said:[26]
"Cantus Arcticus" ... is a markedly different concerto – indeed, it is doubtful that there exists any precedent for this strange and exhilarating composition. Mr. Rautavaara describes it as a "concerto for birds and orchestra," and he has combined woodwind chirps and spare, slate-gray melodies with the actual recorded cries of northern birds into a captivating three-movement composition.
The work was lauded as an example of "wilderness music" in a 1988 article on this topic in a journal ofradical environmentalism.[27]
Cantus Arcticus was described as "an instant crowd-pleaser" in an overview of the composer's orchestral music published in 1999,[28] and a reviewer of a recording released the same year called it "gratifyingly melodic ... provid[ing] pleasant, comfortable listening, very much like tasteful, high-quality background music written to accompany a travelogue."[29] In a 2002 analysis of Rautavaara's output, a musicologist referred toCantus Arcticus as one of his "most popular, although hardly artistically most significant works",[2]: 200 while a concert review in 2007 commented that "many deride [Cantus Arcticus] as easy-listening fluff".[30] Another referred to it as "essentially atone-poem in theSibelius mould."[31]
Regarding the incorporation of taped birdsong in the composition, a concert reviewer in 2000 wrote that "Mr. Rautavaara's tape manipulations are fascinating, especially in the haunting canon of the second movement ... But it came to the fore beautifully elsewhere, lending a human connection to this evocation of a landscape ... ".[32] One in 2007 described the birdsong as "an all-too-obvious mask for the music's banality",[33] and another in 2015 stated that "the effect of the disjuncture between the birds’ aural presence and their absence, there-but-not-there, was slightly surreal [and] sometimes less mystic than disconcerting."[34] A reviewer in 2017 found the taped birdsong "rather dated" and "at one point ... unintentionally humorous".[35]
According toOtonkoski (1994), the appeal ofCantus Arcticus derives from three factors. First, the piece has no "internal dissension": the musical building-blocks are not put into confrontation or conflict with each other. Second, there are no significant "hidden structures": the work is transparent, "lean and sinewy". And lastly, Otonkoski notes the repetitions of "hymn-like" themes in thefirst andthird movements: in his view, these operate like a "hypnoticliturgy".[36]: 24
Burton (2022) suggests that the perception ofCantus Arcticus as a "Finnish" piece has played an important part in its international popularity,[3]: 258 and links "Finnishness" to the concept of nationalexoticism – an idealised notion of Finland – and thence toBohlman's (2017) theory of the attraction of musicalBorealism[37] – an aspect of an exoticised view of "The North". As examples of the work's exoticisation, Burton points to its inclusion incompilation albums presenting an idealised North, instancingAurora Borealis: Magic of the Mysterious North[38] andAurora: Music of the Northern Lights.[39] He also refers to a popular guide to classical music whereCantus Arcticus is described as a "mysterious and exotic sound-world, with the birdcalls emerging and disappearing in the sombre half-light of Rautavaara's orchestral landscapes."[40]
Recordings of the work, in whole or part, have been released on theBIS,Deutsche Grammophon,Finlandia,Naxos,Ondine, andWarner Classics labels. Conductors have includedNeeme Järvi,Hannu Lintu,Max Pommer,Leif Segerstam, andOsmo Vänskä directing theHelsinki Philharmonic,Royal Scottish National, andLeipzig Radio Symphony orchestras, among others.[41] When Rautavaara was asked, in a 1996 interview, "Is there such a thing as a perfect performance?", he replied:[42]
I like different points of view, different aspects on the same work. I'm happy that there are very different performances which I like, so in that sense there is no perfect performance. For instance,Cantus Arcticus, the Concerto for Birds and Orchestra, has been recorded many, many times, and the recording in Ondine by Pommer is very, very good indeed. I like it very much. But there is also a recording by BIS, the Swedish company, where the birds really are a soloist of the concerto. They are much more in foreground, so it sounds really different, entirely different in the basic attitude to the music. And that I love very much, too!
In a 2017podcast, a panel ofmusic critics convened byFrance Musique reviewed several recordings (and a broadcast performance) ofCantus Arcticus, and ranked them on the basis of listeners' votes.[43]
Music festivals that have featuredCantus Arcticus include one in Japan in 1992 organised byIzumi Tateno;[7]: 94 a Scandinavian music festival in Berlin in 1998 organised byVladimir Ashkenazy;[20]: 6 the first Hampstead & Highgate Festival in London, in 1999;[7]: 104 a 2002 "Rautavaara & Franck" festival in Helsinki;[7]: 110 Estonia's 2015Nargenfestival;[44] 2017'sSydney Festival;[45] the 2019Festival de Pâques [Easter Festival] in Aix-en-Provence;[46] theBBC Proms in 2008[47] and 2021;[48] and the 2023Colorado Music Festival.[49]
Viacheslav Samodurov, artistic director of the Yekaterinburg Ballet Company, choreographedCantus Arcticus in 2013.[50] TheFinancial Times described its performance at the 2014Golden Mask Festival in Moscow as "wittily neoclassical".[51]
In 2013,Bruce Munro, aninstallation artist, created a work oflight art, based onfibre optics, inspired byCantus Arcticus.[52] Commissioned by the Rothschild Foundation, it was installed in the formercoach house ofWaddesdon Manor, anEnglish country house, for three years.[53]
Cantus Arcticus in theMichael Wollny Trio's jazz albumOslo, released in 2018, expands severalfigurations of the original.[54] OnAki Rissanen's 2019 albumArt in Motion, an interpretation of the original's second movement,Melancholy,[55] was described as "alternat[ing] between ghostly open chords and the sort of knotty jazz lyricism you’d expect fromKeith Jarrett."[56]
Swans Migrating, the third movement ofCantus Arcticus, is part of thesoundtrack of the filmTo the Wonder (2012), anavant-garderomance directed byTerrence Malick.[57] It accompanies a tense scene between two of the principal characters followed by a romantic flashback.[3]: 258
[J]ää kuitenkin puuttumaan; kenties eniten vastakohtaisuutta eri osien välillä tai myös kustakin niistä syvempään käyvää kehittelyä. Etenkin lintujen osuudesta olisi elektronisin keinoin voinuit saada irti paljon enemmän, mutta ehkäpä Rautavaara ei tunne tätä keinoa itselleen kyllin läheiseksi. Assosiaatiolta amerikkalaiseen laajakangaselokuvaan on myös vaikea välistä välttyä. Hyvä tilausteos, ... mutta ei mikään merkkipaalu Rautavaaran tuotannossa – ainakin kaukana suurenmoisen inspiroituneesta Vigiliasta.
[W]ilderness music elicits a relatively primeval state of nature ... [Sibelius's] best music has a telluric quality, conjuring up a primeval nature, and no composer has better portrayed the bleakness and indifference of the northlands ... For an example of what the successors of Sibelius have done with his musical advances, sample theCantus Arcticus ... .
The images and sounds of nature pervade the musics of the North and chart the landscapes across which musical practices stretch. Nature assumes different forms in musical practice, dependent on historical moment, cultural or social affinity, ethnicity, nationality, genre, and repertory ... The sounds of the natural North may well differ from one repertory or style to another, but they are recognizable. Listeners who want to hear the North expect to hear it, and they are seldom disappointed.
Cantus [Arcticus], set to Einojuhani Rautavaara's eponymous concerto for orchestra and arctic birds (recordings are played alongside the score) ... gives us its cast as a garden of quirky feathered creatures, both graceful and unpredictable ... [.]
For his Cantus Arcticus, Munro creates an illusion of sparkling icy strangeness using curtains of light that shimmer and shift between greens, blues, and pinks, the colours of the Northern Lights. Undulating lines of light from fibre-optic cables, reflected by mirrored walls, are choreographed to respond to the dynamics of the music.
| Opera |
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| Symphonies | |
| Concerto |
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| Orchestral |
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| Brass band |
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| Related | |
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| Other | |
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