Dramatically, it centers on van Gogh's stay at the Saint R my mental hospital, which gives the work a dreamlike, free-floating quality, relieving it of earthbound, linear storytelling. The music is layer upon layer of characters in different times and places, slithering all over each other with little harmonic stability, capturing the prickly tension of van Gogh's art that must have so disturbed his contemporaries. The most inspired moments are purely instrumental. Act II opens with a musical depiction of van Gogh's last painting of crows ominously descending over a wheat field. Trombones bray in seasick glissandos amid periodically thundering drums.
Chimes suggest distant church bells.
Electronically rendered swooshes suggest the painter's tortured reality. Just as Rautavaara's opera is free of traditional plot, his symphony is further liberated from characters. There's less van Gogh, but more inspired Rautavaara. Witness the opposite progression of Enrique Granados' Goyescas. Inspired by Goya, the work began as sensual, atmospheric pieces for solo piano.