Concerts: Music at the Mission

Rapture (2000)
Christopher Rouse (b. 1949)

Completed at Rouse's home in Pittsford, New York on January 9, 2000, Rapture was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and introduced on May 5 by the Orchestra under music director Mariss Jansons, to whom Rapture is dedicated. Rouse has written the following comments:

It should be noted that the title of this score is not "The Rapture;" the piece is not connected to any specific religious source. Rather, I used the word "rapture" to convey a sense of spiritual bliss, religious or otherwise. With the exception of my Christmas work Karolju, this is the most unabashedly tonal music I have composed. I wished to depict a progression toward an ever more blinding ecstasy, but the entire work inhabits a world devoid of darkness - hence the almost complete lack of sustained dissonance. Rapture is also an exercise in gradually increasing tempi; it begins quite slowly but, throughout its 11-minute duration, proceeds to speed up incrementally until the breakneck tempo of the final moments is reached. Although much of my music is associated with grief and despair, Rapture is one of a series of more recent scores - such as Compline (1996), Kabir Padavali (1997) and Concert de Gaudi (1998) - to look "towards the light."

Not recorded

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Symphony No. 2 (1999)
James MacMillan (b. 1959)

Born in Ayrshire, Scotland, James MacMillan was educated at Edinburgh University and completed doctoral studies in composition at Durham University with John Casken. After serving as a lecturer in music at Manchester University, he returned to Scotland where he currently teaches at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. He was appointed affiliate composer of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 1990, and also serves as the visiting composer of the London Philharmonia and artistic director of its contemporary music series, Music of Today. He was recently composer-in-residence for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and joined the BBC Philharmonic last season as its new composer/conductor.

MacMillan's works include The Berserking, a piano concerto composed for Peter Donohoe and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Sinfonietta, commissioned by the London Sinfonietta; and Epiclesis, a trumpet concerto commissioned in 1992 by the Edinburgh Festival for John Wallace. Vocal works include the Seven Last Words from the Cross for chorus and strings, and MacMillan's first opera, Inés de Castro, commissioned by the Scottish National Opera, which received its premiere in 1996. His percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (1992) was featured at the 1996 Cabrillo Music Festival and The Confessions of Isobel Gowdie (1990), the first of MacMillan's works to draw attention, was performed at the Festival two years ago. Last year saw the American premiere of his Triduum.

MacMillan's most recent work is the Symphony No. 2, commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and introduced on December 2, 1999, conducted by the composer. These performances mark its American premiere. MacMillan has written the following comments:

This work is in three movements and lasts about 25 minutes. It is dedicated to the writer and fellow Ayrshireman Andrew O'Hagan. Taking my lead from composers such as Boulez and Berio, I have built this work on an earlier, shorter piece - my Piano Sonata of 1985. The original is "opened up" to new forms of expansion, sometimes according to coloristic potential, other times to dramatic or even originally unseen potential.

The first movement is short and preparatory. It opens with the first of many mournful, tolling bell strokes and is followed by a mounting clamor of high woodwind calls. This merges with the pitter-patter "rain-drops" of high pizzicato strings before settling to the main substance of the movement. This is carried by a sad chorale in brass (and later other winds), punctuated by rippling flurries in flutes and clarinets, and high, brittle repeated chords in the harp. These various ideas are gathered up into a more expressive statement before the music subsides and fades.

The sense of elegy and desolation is contained into the more extended second movement, but this time there is more - ferocity and violence. The music progresses and develops as a series of ruminative fragments and memories of previously stated material. Twice, a low, lurching rhythmic pulse gets going, over which a menacing, martial theme in the brass is built - but again, the music drifts dreamily in other directions. An ominous pulse in brasses, low winds and bass drum is set up from which a florid melody appears in the english horn. This activity is eventually gathered toward a loud, violent shuddering chord from which the music winds down through descending strings. A slow, calm stasis follows before the ominous pulse returns as the snare drum grows out from the distance.

The third movement is a brief postlude, almost an afterthought. The general sweep of the music is from low to high, taking in some free, aleatoric scurrying, the briefest evocation of a compound dance rhythm and some "tristan-esque" moments of repose. Cellos, later joined by violas, emerge with a series of pedal points, which at certain moments become more "melodic." Piccolo, tubular bells and harp play out some of the principal memories of earlier movements over some genuine quotations from Tristan und Isolde which are subjected to some queasy stretching and sliding in the strings.

Not recorded

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Symphony No. 7, "Angel of Light" (1994)
Einojuhani Rautavaara (b. 1928)

Born in Helsinki, Finland, Rautavaara is a highly respected figure in Finnish music, but has gained popularity in the United States only in the last decade, particularly with the Symphony No. 7, "Angel of Light." He studied composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki from 1948 to 1952, and began studies in 1955 at the Juilliard School in New York with Vincent Persichetti. He also worked at Tanglewood with Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions. Rautavaara has composed seven operas, eight symphonies (the Eighth was introduced last year by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch), seven concerti for various instruments, including three piano concerti, and numerous chamber and vocal works.

At first influenced by the neo-classicism of Hindemith and Stravinsky, Rautavaara also experimented in a number of works with serial techniques during the 1950s, before settling on the expressive, often eclectic, sometimes neo-romantic style he uses today. He notes, "It is my belief that music is great if, at some moment, the listener catches 'a glimpse of eternity through the window of time,' if the experience is one which Arthur Koestler might call 'the oceanic feeling.' This, to my mind, is the only true justification for all art. All else is of secondary importance."

The Symphony No. 7, "Angel of Light" was commissioned by the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra and introduced in Bloomington, Indiana in 1995 on the occasion of the orchestra's 25 anniversary. The symphony joins a series of "Angel" pieces Rautavaara has composed, although in explaining the title, he points out, "It probably comes down to the spirit of the times, the Zeitgeist. After all, angels are popular now. I felt self-conscious about putting angels in the titles in the 1970s, when my colleagues were giving their works matter-of-fact titles such as Structures for Strings. Now, I feel self-conscious about the fact that angels have become popular in a banal sense with the New Age phenomenon."

Rautavaara wrote the following liner notes for the first recording of "Angel of Light":

Angel of Light is a new link in the "Angel" series that began 20 years ago. Previous works include Angels and Visitations, the double bass concerto Angel of Dusk, and now the Symphony No. 7, Angel of Light.

The fantasy world of this series has often been misunderstood. These angels do not stem from any children's tale; they are an archetype, one of mankind's oldest traditions and perennial companions. As C.G. Jung says, "Nobody can stand the total loss of the archetype." It must follow us and we must follow it, even today, if we wish to control our lives and understand the world.

It should, however, be clearly stated that these works have no "program." They are absolute music by a composer who has experienced powerful archetypal associations - so powerful that a certain word or pair of words provided the impetus for a composition: "angels and visitations," and so forth. These were like mantras that had to be repeated (in the original English form) until they began to radiate energy —musical energy in this case, since the person thus affected was a composer.

As the title suggests, Angel of Light is a brighter work than its precursors; calm, assured, even serene. The flowing, epic music of the first movement twice drifts toward a climax, a grand hymn motif which truly appears to take wing, but is cut short both times, as if evading the use of brute force. Thus the ground is prepared for the violence of the second movement. Its energy is released in many directions; the textures change frequently. At the end of the movement, variations on the hymn motif are met with angry interjections by the trumpets and eruptions of sound from the entire orchestra, and the situation remains unresolved as the music proceeds directly to the third movement.

This is marked "come un sogno" – "like a dream." As the texture briefly thickens, the hymn motif reappears, but only in the form of barely perceptible harmonics played by the violins. The closing section is finally announced by declamatory, monolithic chords. These are unraveled by a songful string recitative, rising ever higher towards the light, as more and more of the orchestra follows suit, until the apex is reached and the music resolves into broad, sweepingly melodic variations on the hymn motif.

Suggested recording
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leif Segerstam
Ondine ODE 869

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