New Zealand meets New York via Finland
I prefer this version of "Manhattan Trilogy" to Leif Segerstam's, which has too much of a Scandanavian in New York kind of feel. Rautavaara's dreamy mode can be taken too far into sleepy mode, which the New Zealanders don't do. They give it a much higher contrast with more power and better pacing. It's a bit more in the Copland "Quiet City" and Ives "Central Park in the Dark" vein, but not excessively so. "Apotheosis", a new revised final movement for the "Vincent" Symphony (#6) is a bore to me, but I've never heard the whole thing. Symphony #8 is prime Rautavaara. The old guy still has it.
