There I was trying to get some sleep last night, allowing BBC Radio 3's Through the Night to soothe my restive mind. However, instead of being soothed I found myself being mildly alarmed by the sound of screeching birdsong.
This is because at around 01:10am they decided to play Einojuhani Rautavaara's 1972 Concerto for Birds and Orchestra.
Listening to it again in the cold light of day, it's a truly extraordinary piece of work. At turns sumptuously beautiful, faintly comical and, yes, still pretty disturbing.
It'll be on iPlayer for the next 6 days:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00xnfpy/Through_the_Night_25_01_2011/
The piece starts at 01:11:03. Things get particularly extraordinary from about 01:21:50 onwards.
Robert Baldock
There's a pretty good recording of this piece on Spotify too:
ReplyDeletehttp://open.spotify.com/album/03UIbm7SFPdgqovYERYb3N
It's the 3rd movement which I particularly like.
Robert Baldock
really nice ,thanks!
ReplyDeleteWonderful, thank you. xs
ReplyDelete