Contemporary Double Bass Concerto – Angel of Dusk, Concerto for Double Bass (1980/1993) by Einojuhani Rautavaara (b.1928)

Phillip W. Serna Doctoral Recital from 2002 at Northwestern University

Angel of Dusk, Concerto for Double Bass (1980/1993) by Einojuhani Rautavaara (b.1928)
For Double Bass, Two Pianos and Percussion

His First Appearance
His Monologue
His Last Appearance

Dr. Phillip W. Serna, Double Bass
Joseph Francavilla, Piano
J. David Štech, Piano
Robert Dillon, Percussion

For more information, visit Dr. Phillip W. Serna at http://www.phillipwserna.com/.

Part I – Movement I – His First Appearance

PLEASE NOTE – The original video was nonexistant for the first minute of the three movement work. It has to be resynchronized to the audio from a CD recording in 2002. Please forgive a few minutes where there is only a black screen. This problem could not be avoided.

Part II – Movement II – His Monlogue

Part III – Movement III – His First Appearance

Program Notes from Doctoral Recital from 2002 at Northwestern University:

“It is my belief that music is great if, at some moment, the listener catches a glimpse of eternity through the window of time,’ if the experience is one which Arthur Koestler might call ‘the oceanic feeling.’ This, to my mind, is the only true justification for all art. All else is of secondary importance.”

Einojuhani Rautavaara

Born in Helsinki, Finland, Einojuhani Rautavaara has most recently gained popularity in the United States in the last decade, particularly with the Symphony No. 7, Angel of Light. He studied composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki from 1948 to 1952, and began studies in 1955 at the Juilliard School in New York with Vincent Persichetti. He also worked at Tanglewood with Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions. Rautavaara has composed seven operas, eight symphonies, seven concerti for various instruments, including three piano concerti, and numerous chamber and vocal works.

According to the composer, ‘the fantasy world of this series has often been misunderstood. These angels do not stem from any children’s tale; they are an archetype, one of mankind’s oldest traditions and perennial companions. As C.G. Jung says, “Nobody can stand the total loss of the archetype.” It must follow us and we must follow it, even today, if we wish to control our lives and understand the world.’ The imagery that Rautavaara employs in relating his thoughts on angels harks back to his childhood as he notes that “again and again in my dreams, an enormous, grey, powerful, silent creature would approach me and clasp me in its arms so I feared its mighty presence would suffocate me. I struggled for dear life…until I awoke. The figure came back night after night, and I spent the days fearing its return. Finally, after dozens of these battles, I learned to surrender, to become part of it, and after a while, the nocturnal visits ended.” Later in his writings on the subject he made connections to the poetry of William Blake and Rainer Maria Rilke’s images of angels: “…ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich…” (‘…every angel is terrible…”). The impetus, as the composer notes, for the 1st of his ‘Angels’ works was in Rilke’s verses ‘…es nähme einer mich plötzlich ans Herz: ich verginge von seinem stärkeren Dasein” (“…should one suddenly press me to his heart: I would perish by his more powerful presence…”) Such is the dark imagery associated to these series of works on the subject. The Angel of Dusk, Concerto for Double Bass (1980/1993) is the 2nd piece in Rautavaara’s ‘Angel Series’ beginning with his Angels and Visitations (1978), Playgrounds for Angels (1981), and his Angel of Light, Symphony #7 (1994). The following are the composer’s own notes on the Angel of Dusk, Concerto for Double Bass, Two Pianos and Percussion:

This concerto was initially requested by Olga Koussevitzky, who had been my patron while I was a student, when I met her in New York in 1977, two decades after my study in New York.. While Returning to Helsinki I was reflecting over this new challenge when, looking out of the window of the plane, I saw a strikingly shaped cloud, grey but pierced with colour, rising above the Atlantic horizon. Suddenly the words ‘Angel of Dusk’ came to mind. These words remained with me and returned to me, like a mantra, when I heard of the news of Olga Kousevitzky’s death the following year and the project had to be postponed. A couple of years later the idea of such a concerto resurfaced when the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation commissioned the work. The help of double bass virtuoso Olli Kosonen was quite indispensable during my work on the piece and, by borrowing a double bass and experimenting at home, I also worked out new types of playing technique for this unusual but captivating solo instrument. In the first movement the double bass’s songful cantilena is interrupted time after time by dissonant outbursts from the orchestra. These grow and compel the solo instrument to participate in a dialogue which eventually displaces the original theme. This sort of so-called ‘disturbance technique’ occurs frequently in my works from the 1970’s. The second movement is a solo cadenza, in which the fantastic tonal colours and techniques only provoke passing comments from the orchestra. The final movement begins with a gradually rising, peaceful swaying theme. This gives way to rapid figurations from the double bass, frames by strokes from the orchestra, until eventually the soloist and orchestra join together in a final catharsis.

Angel of Dusk, concerto for double bass, two pianos, and percussion instruments (1993) is an independent version of the concerto for double bass and orchestra (1980), intended for performance in its own right.

For more information, visit Dr. Phillip W. Serna at http://www.phillipwserna.com/.