In 1915, while working on his Fifth Symphony, Jean Sibelius ventured into the Finnish landscape where he saw sixteen swans take flight into the midday sky, circle, and disappear “into the solar haze like a gleaming silver ribbon.” The experience inspired the pivotal theme of the Symphony’s final movement, which emerges majestically in the horns.
Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016), perhaps the most significant Finnish composer of the second half of the 20th century, similarly embraced the poetry of the wild Nordic landscape. “I don’t think that even a most urbanized person born in Finland can avoid being touched by the Finnish landscape–especially by immense woods and swamps and bogs in the North, where I spent many childhood summers,” observed Rautavaara.
This vibrant sound world comes alive in Rautavaara’s Cantus arcticus, Op. 61 (Concerto for Birds and Orchestra). Set in three movements, the work combines the instruments of the orchestra with an awe-inspiring natural choir of electronically recorded birdsong. Commissioned in 1972 by the University of Oulu to mark its first doctoral degree ceremony, the work was originally to have been a cantata. When Rautavaara could not find a suitable text, he instead recorded the sounds of birds near the Arctic Circle, and on the bogs of Liminka near the northern Finnish city of Oulu. The sounds were modified in the studio to form a counterpoint with instrumental voices, while the woodwinds adapted lines imitating birdsongs.
Beethoven (in his Pastoral Symphony), Mahler (in his First Symphony) and Messiaen (in numerous works) quoted birdsong. Ottorino Respighi included a gramophone record of birds in his 1924 tone poem, Pines of Rome. But in Rautavaara’s Cantus arcticus, recorded sounds of the natural world augment the orchestra to create a new sonic/cinematic experience. Its precedent can be found in Alan Hovhaness’ brief 1970 aleatoric tone poem, And God Created Great Whales, which integrates electronically recorded whale sounds with the orchestra.
The first movement, Suo (“The Bog”) begins with two solo flutes, circling and gliding. Gradually, they are joined by the sounds of bog birds in the spring. Interrupting the time-altering ostinato, the full orchestra enters with a radiant, celebratory hymn. A continuously evolving harmonic process suggests the vastness of nature.
The second movement (Melancholy) enters the haunting world of Sibelius’ The Swan of Tuonela. It begins with a slowed-down recording of the shore lark. Heard two octaves lower that the original recording, the song takes on a tragic and lamenting tone.
The final movement (Swans Migrating) begins with the sounds of the whooper swan, the national bird of Finland. The orchestra enters with aleatoric passages in which notes are played at random times to bring an element of chance. The glorious cacophony of the swan calls combine with a return of the first movement’s hymn theme. This music was used in the soundtrack for the 2012 experimental romantic drama film, To the Wonder. The magically cinematic final bars fade into the distance.
I. The Bog:
II. Melancholy:
III. Swans Migrating:
Recordings
- Rautavaara: Cantus arcticus, Op. 61, “Concerto for Birds and Orchestra,” Leif Segerstam, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra Amazon
Featured Image: Birds surrounding an Artic ice floe