Segerstam conducts Rautavaara: On the Last Frontier

“Music needs personality” said the conductor Leif Segerstam, speaking of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s choral “fantasy” On the Last Frontier. “It needs something between the lines”. And the imitable, irrepressible personalities of both of these much-missed artists are plain to see and hear in this 1998 concert from Helsinki’s Finlandia Hall. Rautavaara took his inspiration from a novel by Edgar Allan Poe, but Poe’s narrative of Antarctic exploration soon takes on a spiritual, almost other-worldly quality, in music of rapturous beauty and visionary power. Segerstam’s personal empathy with the composer gives this world premiere performance an unforgettable sense of occasion.