Väinö RAITIO (1891-1945)
Fantasia poetica, Op 25 (1923) [10:00]
Fantasia estatica, Op 21 (1921) [10:52]
The Swans (Joutsenet) (1919) [7:17]
The Column Fountain (Vesipatsas) (1929) [18:30]
Antigone, Op 23 (1921-22) [25:16]
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Jukka-Pekka Saraste
rec. 1988-92, House of Culture, Helsinki, Finland
ONDINE ODE790-2 [71:55]
Finnish composer Väinö Raitio was an enigmatic figure. Drawn as a student to the music of Scriabin, he also developed an interest in French Impressionism. These influences reveal his fascination with musical tone color, or timbre, and its expressive and structural possibilities. The core of Raitio’s work is a series of eight tone poems, often reflective of Symbolist poetry. With its phantasmagoric colors, fragmentary themes, personal harmonic language, and near-Expressionist level of emotional content, Raitio’s youthful musical voice was radical for its time. Surprisingly, Raitio dropped this uncompromising stance as he grew older, writing works for small orchestra in a salon style. Only in his operas did Raitio continue his development of timbral exploration and declamatory melody.
This disc presents four of Raitio’s tone poems as well as a later ballet. Proceeding in chronological order, first there is Joutsenet, or “The Swans,” from 1919. There is still a touch of national romanticism in this work, making it something of a Sibelius-Scriabin blend. Its musical arc moves from fragmentary beginnings to two visionary climaxes before subsiding. Rising and falling passages like heaving ocean swells mark its journey to the high points. The title comes from an eponymous Symbolist poem by Otto Manninen (1872-1950).
Next is Antigone, a three-part symphonic poem. Despite its length, it is also the most concentrated. The tragic subject seems to have focused Raitio’s mind – there is little to relieve the sense of angst. Inventive orchestration occasionally colors the generally bleak tone but this is much the sternest work on the disc.
The adjective “ecstatic” in the title Fantasia estatica will remind listeners of Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy. Raitio’s Fantasia does indeed reflect Scriabin’s early influence without merely imitating his style. Both works draw up on a similar range of color and passion but Raitio’s Fantasia has an edge Scriabin lacks. The result sounds almost dangerous; Scriabin is more purely voluptuous instead. While Scriabin brings his Poem to an eventual musical-philosophical-erotic fulfillment, Raitio’s music rises to climaxes as menacing as they are ecstatic.
The Fantasia poetica represents the high point of Raitio’s coloristic musical voice. Its literary motto comes from a poem by Hugo von Hoffmannsthal (1874-1929) titled Erlebnis, or “An Experience.” Raitio matches Hoffmannsthal’s hallucinatory language with otherworldly music making full use of large orchestral forces. Passages for harp, celesta, and bells abound and the simple rising and falling main theme undergoes fantastical metamorphoses. Raitio intended Fantasia estatica and Fantasia poetica to form a trilogy with an unwritten work titled Fantasia chaotica. What an experience that might have been!
Vesipatsas, or “The Column Fountain,” is a very different beast. Immediately appealing, with clear-cut rhythms and tuneful melodies, it points to the Paris of the 1920s. The liner notes mention its affinities with the music of Milhaud and Stravinsky. Raitio retains his kaleidoscopic orchestration, however, so the ballet emerges sounding something like Milhaud’s Le Boeuf sur le Toit scored with Stravinsky’s orchestration from The Firebird – quite a combination. Based on a libretto by Paul Knudson and completed 1929, Vesipatsas premiered on a double-bill with Raitio’s opera The Daughter of Jephthah at the Finnish Opera on 2 June 1931.
Jukka-Pekka Saraste leads the Finnish Radio Symphony in utterly committed performances. The musicians communicate Raitio’s intensely personal musical experiences from the Expressionist violence of Antigone to the quirky tango that concludes Vesipatsas. The two Fantasias in particular, with their ever-shifting colors and mercurial moods, receive urgent advocacy. The recording is a touch close but not inappropriate to the deeply interior worlds of Raitio’s music.
The only competition in this repertoire comes from a recording of Joutsenet on BIS with Osmo Vänskä leading the Lahti Symphony Orchestra (BIS-CD-575). Saraste is more hard-driven than Vänskä, who allows the music a more natural pace. The BIS sound is also slightly clearer.
There remain unrecorded several tone poems, including the evocatively titled Moonlight on Jupiter, as well as all five of Raitio’s operas. Will anyone take up the challenge? May it prove as much a labor of love as is this disc. Though originally released in 1992, this album is available as 16-bit downloads from Presto Music. If Raitio’s ecstatic, poetic, and coloristic music appeals to you, find it today. To sample Raitio’s later conservative style, another Ondine recording captures his works for small orchestra (ODE 975-2) (review ~ review).
Christopher Little
