The honour was awarded by President Pál Schmitt on March 15, the anniversary of the 1848-49 revolution and war of independence, and presented by Hungary?s ambassador to Finland Kristóf Forrai at a concert in Helsinki?s Finlandia Palace.
The award was an acknowledgement of the composer?s work, especially his treatment of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in the opera Kaivos (Mine) as well as his efforts to popularise the work of the Hungarian composers Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály and Ferenc Liszt among Finnish people.
The concert on Saturday wound up the 23rd Kodály Week in Finland. It featured a performance by the Helsinki Youth String Orchestra, established 40 years ago by the Hungarian brothers Csaba and Géza Szilvay.
Rautavaara, born in 1928, is perhaps Finland?s best known composer after Sibelius.
?He is by nature a romantic, even a mystic?a complex and contradictory figure whose works cannot be categorized in stylistic terms,? according to his publisher Fennica Gehrman.
At the age of seventeen Rautavaara began studying the piano and later went on to study musicology at Helsinki University and composition at the Sibelius Academy. From 1951-53 he was a pupil of Aarre Merikanto receiving his diploma in composition in 1957. In 1955 the Koussewitzky Foundation awarded Jean Sibelius a scholarship in honour of his 90th birthday to enable a young Finnish composer of his choice to study in the United States. Sibelius selected Rautavaara who spent two years studying with Vincent Persichetti at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and also took part in the summer courses at Tanglewood given by Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland. In 1957 Rautavaara continued his studies with Wladimir Vogel in Ascona, Switzerland and a year later with Rudolf Petzold in Cologne. Rautavaara has taught and lectured at the Sibelius Academy as the professor of composition. Since 1988 he has made his living as a composer in Helsinki.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Fennica Gehrman
