Among the most notable Finnish composers since Jean Sibelius (1865–1957),[1] Rautavaara wrote a great number of works spanning various styles.

His early childhood was molded by the musicianship of his father, and at the encouragement of his mother, Einojuhani began to casually learn piano when he was young.

He went to live with his aunt Hilja Helena Teräskeli (1893–1958) in the city of Turku, where he began taking formal piano lessons at the age of 17.

He first came to international attention when he won the Thor Johnson Contest for his composition A Requiem in Our Time in 1954, despite having, according to Rautavaara, "...absolutely no experience of writing for brass band and [a] composition technique [that] was immature at the time..."[6] Nevertheless, the work prompted Jean Sibelius to recommend him for a scholarship to study at the Juilliard School in New York City.

Reflecting on his time enrolled in Juilliard, Rautavaara later said that living in Manhattan was, "Maybe the most important experience, [and] taught much more about life to me than all those teachers about music."

He then returned to Helsinki and graduated from the Sibelius Academy in 1957, later choosing to study further in Switzerland that same year, under the tutelage of Swiss composer Wladimir Vogel.

[5] After an aortic dissection in January 2004, Rautavaara spent almost half a year in intensive care before recovering and continuing his work.

[10] Even his serial works from the period carry obvious romantic and post-expressionist notes stylistically closer to Alban Berg and Anton Bruckner than more straightforward serialists such as Pierre Boulez.

[8][10] His use of these 12-tone and serialist techniques was highly uncommon in Finland at the time, allowing Rautavaara to become a controversial figure, and pushing him to the forefront of the Finnish classical music scene, alongside composers Joonas Kokkonen and Erkki Salmenhaara.

In the mid-1960s, however, Rautavaara fell into a creative crisis with serialism, realizing that the composition method was immensely laborious and its distance from the outcome too large.

Its hallmarks included three-chord-based, often modal harmonies, ringing softly romantic orchestrals, modernism springing from the new play modes, and finally the return of the twelve-tone passages embedded into the musical texture.

Cantus Arcticus followed immediately after, in the beginning of 1972, and in the summer he composed an extensive score for male choir, A Book of Life.

The comical opera-musical Apollo contra Marsyas, made in 1970 in cooperation with librettist Bengt V. Wall [sv] turned out to be a disappointment.

His mature style in operas was exhibited later, in Thomas (1985); subsequently Vincent (1987) and The House of the Sun (1991) earned him notable international success.

[4][10] His opera Thomas (1985) marked the beginning of his mature operatic style, combining neo-Romantic harmonies with aleatoric counterpoint, twelve-tone rows and different modal systems.

[11] His most widely acclaimed work, the Seventh Symphony, earned a Cannes Classical Award and a Grammy nomination for the recording by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leif Segerstam.

[citation needed] Rautavaara did not live to see the first opera stage première of Kaivos, the uncensored version, which took place 21 October 2016 in Budapest, Hungary.

[25] In 2019 a recording of Lost Landscapes, performed by Joanna Kamenarska at the violin and Moisès Fernández Via at the piano, was released by the Mexican label Urtext Digital Classics.