Arctic Birds Not Monkeys

I've already dealt with a few pieces of music that have had the influence of bird song to a greater or lesser extent. Cantus Arcticus by the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara goes a step further and is actually a concerto for birds and orchestra, using pre-recorded tapes of bird song from the Arctic Circle and the Finnish marshlands. It is a wonderfully evocative piece which immediately conjures up the frozen northern vistas. Strange then that on listening, I was struck by similarities to some of the pieces by the Australian Peter Sculthorpe that I had recently written about and which of course were inspired by landscape at the opposite end of the spectrum. This cd of music by Rautavaara features the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu. The other works on the disk are the Piano Concerto No 1 with soloist Laure Mikkola and Symphony No 3. The piano concerto pre-dates Cantus Arcticus but similarities in some of the themes can be discerned and the solo style is representative of Rautavaara's own percussive style of playing. The third symphony is written in a twelve tone method but remains a tonal piece that could be said to be vaguely Brucknerian with a 20th century twist.