Rautavaara: Works For Piano

This Naxos disc presents Laura Mikkola's performances of the solo piano works of Einojuhani Rautavaara. While not a complete survey, it does cover Rautavaara's most substantial solo piano pieces. The "Icons" (1955) were inspired by Orthodox iconography. Though not of the faith himself, Rautavaara was exposed to the Finnish Orthodox Church in childhood and it's comparative exoticness seems to have left a deep mark on him. These six pieces in a neoclassical style represent particular scenes of Orthodox iconography: "The Death of the Mother of God", "Two Village Saints", "The Black Madonna of Blakernaya", "The Baptism of Christ", "The Holy Women at the Sepulchre" and "Archangel Michael Fighting the Antichrist". There's a great diversity here, and it's not all solemn and meditative: the second and fourth pieces are as jolly as the player piano in a western. The remaining works were written over a decade later, at a time when Rautavaara was interested in the "grand style" of piano playing in the era of Liszt. The Piano Concerto No. 1 (hear Mikkola perform it on another Naxos disc) was marked by wide runs and palm clusters, and that same spirit is found in the Piano Etudes (1969) and Piano Sonata No. 1 (1969) and No. 2 (1970). The six Etudes follow the model of Debussy in focusing each on a different interval: "Thirds", "Sevenths", "Tritones", "Fourths", "Seconds" and "Fifths". The piano sonatas are both in two movements. The First is titled "Christus und die Fischer" and employs a bare minimum of material. The Second, which bears the title "The Fire Sermon", is it's polar opposite, with the first movement consisting of shifting clusters played very fast.