We must keep his music alive


The media resounds with fulsome tributes to Einojuhani Rautavaara who has died aged 87. These tributes quite rightly position him as an important figure in contemporary music. Yet the reality does not reflect the theory: taking that useful barometer of music fashion the BBC Proms, Rautavaara's music has only been performed three times at the Proms, and not since 2008. All I can do is paraphrase what I wrote when Peter Maxwell Davies died. We need to remember Einojuhani Rautavaara and the others that we have lost recently. But we need to remember them in perpetuity. That means rising to the difficult challenge of keeping their music alive and introducing it to new audiences long after the media has moved on to the next big thing.

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