Rautavaara: Rubaiyat, Balada, Canto V, Four Songs from Rasputin CD review – gooey post-Romanticism

Helsinki Philharmonic/Helsinki Music Centre Choir/Storgards/Finley(Ondine)It took me several attempts to make it all the way through this disc of recent-ish choral and orchestral works by Einojuhani Rautavaara. The 88-year-old Finnish composer, mystical with a capital M, has dipped into various styles from neoclassicism to serialism to glassy Nordic minimalism during his long career, but his late style has settled into a thick, gooey swirl of post-Romanticism, and I kept feeling overwhelmingly b...

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