Rautavaara: Missa a cappella - Sacred Choral Works Latvian Radio Choir & Sigvards Klava

• Missa a cappella
• 1Kyrie02:38
• 2Gloria04:19
• 3Credo06:09
• 4Sanctus04:41
• 5Benedictus04:01
• 6Agnus Dei04:43
• Vigilia (Sung in English) (excerpts)
• 7Vespers: Psalm of Invocation02:26
• 8Vespers: Evening Hymn02:29
• Missa duodecanonica
• 9Kyrie00:48
• 10Sanctus01:52
• 11Agnus Dei00:55
• Ave Maria gratia plena
• 12Ave Maria gratia plena04:42
• Canticum Mariae Virginis
• 13Canticum Mariae Virginis08:51
• Our Joyful'st Feast
• 14Our Joyful'st Feast04:39
• Die erste Elegie
• 15Die erste Elegie10:12
• Total Runtime01:03:25

Info for Rautavaara: Missa a cappella - Sacred Choral Works

Ondine continues its long-term collaboration with Einojuhani Rautavaara with the world première recording of his Missa a cappella. Einojuhani Rautavaara – a self-described “mythstic” – has written a considerable amount of sacred music, including works in the Lutheran, Catholic and Orthodox traditions. His Missa a cappella is one of his most significant recent works, and is here recorded alongside extracts of the Vigilia – his most extensive sacred choral work – his Missa duodecanonica, and a number of smaller sacred choral works.

The Latvian Radio Choir is one of the top chamber choirs in Europe, praised by Gramophone as “an outstanding body of singers”. As a “sound laboratory”, the singers investigate alternative techniques to enhance their vocal skills – from traditional methods to the art of quartertone and overtone singing.

Under the direction of Sigvards Kļava, the Latvian Radio Choir has become an internationally acclaimed and vocally distinctive ensemble, constantly searching for new ideas. Under his guidance, the choir has recorded a several works by lesser-known composers, and have collaborated with a number of notable Latvian composers.

This is the Latvian Radio Choir’s follow-up disc to their highly acclaimed recording of Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil, which was Gramophone’s Recording of the Month in their February issue.

Latvian Radio Choir
Sigvards Klava, conductor

Recorded at St John’s Church, Riga, Latvia, 10, 14–15 January, 11–12 February 2013
Produced by Reijo Kiilunen
Engineered by Andris Ūze
Digital Mastering by Enno Mäemets (Editroom Oy)

Sigvards Kļava
began working with the Latvian Radio Choir in 1987 and was appointed its Chief Conductor and Artistic Director in 1992. As one of Latvia's most prolific choral conductors, Sigvards Kļava has collaborated with every leading choir and orchestra in the country, performing the great works of the standard repertoire in addition to conducting most premieres of new choral works by Latvian composers. He has recorded over 20 CDs with the Latvian Radio Choir. Sigvards Kļava has also been Chief Conductor at a number of Latvian and Nordic song festivals. He is a co-founder of the Latvian New Music Festival ARENA and serves as a member of its artistic board. He teaches young conductors at the Choral Department of the Latvian Academy of Music and the Choral College of the Riga Lutheran Cathedral. Sigvards Kļava appears as a guest conductor with leading European choirs. He has received the Latvian Great Music Award and the Latvian Cabinet of Ministers Award.

Einojuhani Rautavaara
(born 9 October 1928) is internationally one of the best known and most frequently performed Finnish composers. He is by nature a romantic, even a mystic, as is often apparent from the titles of his works: for example Angels and Visitations for orchestra or his double-bass concerto Angel of Dusk. Despite Rautavaara's label of "mysticism" he is a complex and contradictory figure whose works cannot be categorized in stylistic terms.

At the age of seventeen Rautavaara began studying the piano and later went on to study musicology at Helsinki University and composition at the Sibelius Academy. From 1951-53 he was a pupil of Aarre Merikanto receiving his diploma in composition in 1957. In 1955 the Koussewitzky Foundation awarded Jean Sibelius a scholarship in honour of his 90th birthday to enable a young Finnish composer of his choice to study in the United States. Sibelius selected Rautavaara who spent two years studying with Vincent Persichetti at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and also took part in the summer courses at Tanglewood given by Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland. In 1957 Rautavaara continued his studies with Wladimir Vogel in Ascona, Switzerland and a year later with Rudolf Petzold in Cologne. Rautavaara has taught and lectured at the Sibelius Academy as the professor of composition. Since 1988 he has made his living as a composer in Helsinki.

Rautavaara's earliest works revealed close ties to tradition but also his desire to renew it. They were followed by an extreme constructivist and avant-garde phase (as in the serially organized fourth symphony "Arabescata", 1962) after which Rautavaara turned to hyper-romanticism and finally mysticism. Since the early 1980s, Rautavaara has adopted a sort of post-modern musical language in which modern and traditional elements of varying degrees of constructivism or freedom are combined with one another.

Rautavaara has composed eight symphonies, the most frequently performed of them being the Angel of Light, his seventh symphony. Symphony No. 8, The Journey was premiered in April 2000 by The Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch. Other important groups of works include concertos for different solo instruments, among them the three piano concertos, the popular Violin Concerto (1977), the Harp Concerto (2000) and the Clarinet Concerto (2001-02). Rautavaara has also written a large body of chamber music as well as choral and vocal works including All-Night Vigil for a cappella chorus. One of Rautavaara's most popular works is Cantus arcticus, concerto for birds and orchestra, in which the straightforward orchestral part is juxtaposed with the sounds of birds recorded by the composer himself. Rautavaara's latest orchestral works, published by Boosey & Hawkes, include and Manhattan Trilogy (2004), Book of Visions (2005), Before the Icons (2005) and A Tapestry of Life (2007).

Apart form his symphonies (ODE 1145-2Q) and concertos (ODE 1156-2Q), the central pillars of Rautavaara's extensive oeuvre are his operas. With Vincent (1985-87) and The House of the Sun (1990) Rautavaara has scored a notable international success. Aleksis Kivi (1995-96) was premiered at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 1997 and it has been performed in Cosenza, Italy and Minneapolis, U.S.A since then. The latest stage work is Rasputin (2001-2003), an opera about the life of mystic and healer Grigory Rasputin.

Booklet for Rautavaara: Missa a cappella - Sacred Choral Works