Einojuhani Rautavaara – Annunciations (Organ Concerto) (1977)

Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016)
Annunciations, for organ, brass quintet, wind orchestra and percussion (1977)

Kari Jussila, Organ
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra / Leif Segerstam

"Annunciations was written during 1976–77 in response to a commission from the Stockholm Organ Festival. The triple forces required by the instrumentation were proposed by the commissioning organisation. The coupling of a symphonic wind band with its acoustical twin, the organ, leads to a superimposition of two similar timbral spectra which permitted me to create rather exciting worlds of sound.

Behind this work stands a powerful personal vision, strictly musical in nature. This said, it is possible for listeners to experience visual images when listening to this music, and its unbroken arc of half an hour’s duration has a narrative feel to it.

The introduction is slow and exploratory, like the creation of the world. In a way it lays out various symmetrical structures which invite further development. Fast passages in the organ trigger off a ‘domino’ form in which various sections follow one another in succession, laid end to end as it were. A dense ‘forest of birds’ is followed by a cantabile canon, which in turn culminates in a boisterous scherzo. After another cantabile passage the music quietens and a long, slow climb begins which eventually leads to the climax of the whole work. At this point the organ motor is switched off, leaving the notes of a dense chord swimming around in the hall and individually dying out over shorter or longer periods, depending on the acoustic. A swiftly moving finale then spurs on the work’s ‘annunciations’ to a furious conclusion. One critic, commenting on this finale, once remarked that it reminded him of a Pasolini movie in which ‘drunken aristocrats writhe over the organ keys’. I rather liked this analogy."

– Einojuhani Rautavaara