Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
Rautavaara's "Angels"
Do you believe in Angels? Apparently the mystical Finnish composer Einojuhanni Rautavaara did. He produced a number of orchestral pieces with evocative titles like "Angels and Visitations" or "Angel of Light." One of these, a concerto for double-bass and orchestra, is titled "Angel of Dusk," and was given its premiere performance in on today's date in 1981, in Helsinki. "Looking out the window of a plane," wrote Rautavaara, "I saw a strikingly shaped cloud, gray but pierced with color, rising above the Atlantic horizon. Suddenly, the words 'Angel of Dusk' came to mind." Rautavaara had been asked to write a double-bass concerto for a friend, who died before the composer could comply with the request. Some years later, when the idea of such a concerto was suggested by another soloist, Rautavaara recalled the vision of the cloud, and had his title. In an interview, Rautavaara spoke of a scientist who wrote that "the existence of music is an intellectual scandal." "With that he meant," Rautavaara explained, "…that there is a message in music, and yet there are no words for that message. It's from another world. For a scientist that is a scandal. For me, it's a wonderful thing." "In the end, I agree with Carl Jung," said Rautavaara. "The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him."