This release on Finnish label Ondine offers Einojuhani Rautavaara's
complete works for violin and piano. This isn't a large group, and even
the composer's chamber works in general are not numerous. Accordingly
the collection of music here is something of a miscellany, and the buyer
new to Rautavaara will probably find that his genius reveals itself
better in larger genres. This said, fans of the composer will find much
of interest here. Among the highlights is Rautavaara's very first
published work, Pelimannit (The Fiddlers), a suite for piano from 1952.
The work consists of variations, one each, on six traditional Finnish
fiddle tunes, and violinist Pekka Kuusisto here had the inspired idea to
pair the variations with the fiddle tunes themselves. For listeners may
not have the sound of Finnish folk music in their heads, this brings
out the imagination of these little pieces, whose luminous tone took
them far beyond the world of Bartók in which they were probably based.
Lost Landscapes, composed in 2005 for violinist Midori, comes from the
other end of Rautavaara's career; it fits depictions of four of
Rautavaara's temporary homes -- Tanglewood in Massachusetts, Ascona
(Switzerland), Vienna, and New York City -- into his winding,
contrapuntal style. In between are a variety of short pieces, several of
them written for competition settings; they boil Rautavaara's spacious
style down to the simple dimensions of the violin-and-piano duet.
Kuusisto's playing is a major attraction here; he cultivates a wiry yet
attractive tone that seems tailor-made for Rautavaara. Ondine's
engineering is at its usual high level. by James Manheim 
