Raitio, Väinö (1891–1945)

Väinö Eerikki Raitio (15 April 1891 in Sortavala, Grand Duchy of Finland – 10 September 1945 in Helsinki) was part of the small group of composers who appeared in the Finnish art music scene in the 1920s with a new cosmopolitan music style, very different from the dominant conservative National Romanticism.

Raitio’s career as a composer reached its peak in the 1920s when eight large symphonic poems appeared from his pen. Influenced by Alexander Scriabin, his style was too modern for Nordic music circles, and his orchestral work Joutsenet (The Swans, Les Cygnes) of 1919 remained as his sole orchestral piece to be published (in 1938).

Raitio’s profile as a composer slipped, as he concentrated on shorter works for smaller ensembles in the 1930s and 1940s. In private, however, much effort was made by the composer to write operatic works. Still today, his five operas are only known from the composer’s hand-written manuscripts.