Symphony No. 7, Angel of Light
Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016)

[1994]

When Einojuhani Rautavaara was an emerging composer in Finland, he received the ultimate seal of approval when living legend Jean Sibelius chose him for a scholarship to study at The Juilliard School in New York. After an early phase of experimentation with the rigorous serial techniques that dominated musical thought in the 1960s, Rautavaara relaxed into a more melodic, mystical style that made him the true heir to Sibelius as a composer of distinctly Finnish and highly personal symphonies.

The Seventh Symphony that Rautavaara composed in 1994 for the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra in Indiana belonged to a series of “Angel” works that dated back to the late 1970s.

“The first impulse for these pieces came from their titles,” Rautavaara wrote, “which, by persisting forcefully in my mind, finally set off a force field of energy—in other words, music. No story or ‘program’ is associated with these works. Behind them, however, is the certainty that there exist different levels of knowledge, different truths, those that can be explained rationally and those which cannot be defined in words. Music is a language in which one can tell such truths ecstatically but without recourse to words. If one wishes to find words for them, one might for example speak of ‘angels.’”

Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, strings