Several of the concerts at this year’s Estonian Music Days were of orchestra-sized proportions. The largest of them came late in the festival, featuring the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO) conducted by Olari Elts.
The concert consisted of two works for orchestra and two concertos, all by Estonian composers. The most expansive piece on the programme was Erkki-Sven Tüür‘s Violin Concerto No. 2, composed in 2018, featuring soloist Hans Christian Aavik. Subtitled “Angel’s Share”, i wrote about this piece last year, when Aavik’s recording (with the Odense Symphony Orchestra under Gemma New) was released, noting how in that performance lyrical music was made most prominent, such that rhythmic episodes became diversions along the way. It makes sense for this piece and for Tüür’s music generally, though Olari Elts – irrepressible at the best of times – clearly wanted things to be more balanced, giving the energetic music plenty of emphasis.
On the one hand, it worked well enough, demonstrating the concerto’s curious but effective mixture of gestural and reflective material, interspersed with beautiful quantities of radiance, given an excellent focal point in Aavik’s intonationally immaculate violin. Yet over time one couldn’t help feeling the attempt to balance the work’s internal forces resulted in a terminally oscillating musical mindset, exaggerating the differences without finding a convincing way to resolve them. As such, the work’s rhythmic impulse began to pall and irritate, feeling like one too many overlong digressions away from the actually important stuff going on around it. Nonetheless, a very strong piece and once again Aavik was eloquent and exuberant with each twist and turn.
There were two disappointments. The predictable one was Lepo Sumera‘s Symphony No. 2, a tired, repetitive work that appears at first glance to be highly energised but is soon revealed merely to be going through the motions. Filmic, noodling, falling into a pseudo-rambunctious ruckus for no very good reason, mistaking mere loudness for genuine power, collapsing into neoclassical nonsense later on. By the time we reached the final movement it had gone from bad to worse: now like a stupid, melodramatic movie score, empty, superficial, derivative and utterly trivial. Though nowhere near as flawed, Riho Esko Maimets‘ Ecdysis, a double concerto for piccolo and harp, was nonetheless problematic. Too much of its music felt preparatory, indicating substance to come that didn’t materialise. Instead Maimets resorted to familiar gestures and floridity, to the extent that the soloists’ music seemed generic, not personal (in contrast to his fiery choral work Sest tahan appi hüüda, premièred earlier in the festival). It took on a collage-like appearance, juxtaposing assorted tropes. It was at its most interesting when Maimets silenced the orchestra, focusing on the piccolo and harp, their duet revealing a lovely mutual sympathy, the material immediately more individual and imaginative. After which Ecdysis seemed lost, as if trying to figure out what to do next.
The highlight of the concert came from Liisa Hirsch, whose Rising Realms received its first performance. Multiple layers fascinated the ear, sometimes moving independently, sometimes aligned and coordinated. It was like looking up at an enormous rock face, overwhelmed and intimidated by its sheer immensity. One felt incredibly small, despite the lack of anything overtly threatening in the orchestra. Whereupon it was as if Hirsch transformed the music from solid to gas, the rock face now cloud-like, turning transparent yet somehow having a semi-physical surface, before evaporating in the stratosphere.
As usual, at the Estonian Academy of Music & Theatre new pieces from the composition students were showcased by the EAMT Sinfonietta. It’s always interesting to hear what they’re up to, and once again a few works stood out. There were the usual student foibles – a pointless bit of neo-Baroque from Klaus Brandstetter, sounding more like one of Webern’s Bach orchestrations than anything original (why it was included in the concert is anyone’s guess); stodgy instrumental textures where what was important was unclear (Inessa Green); and works predicated on flimsy ideas, either due to an overemphasis on momentum (Elvis Delinš) or flat, disinterested material (Säde Semper).
Dimitrios Konstantinos Rizos reached back into the 20th century, drawing on free atonality in Anamnesis, to engaging effect, though at times it made the piece sound like pastiche – in terms of gesture as well as harmony – even more so later when Rizos strongly invoked Takemitsu. Also reaching back was Erik Rauk, who utilised both free atonal and post-tonal styles in search of a language. While it gave his work Procession an archaic, anachronistic quality, Rauk showed both confidence and conviction in his writing, with strong ideas, so perhaps the backward borrowings are a means to an end, and in due course his own voice will emerge. Fingers crossed.
Most successful of all, by far the most original music in the concert, came from Sofiia Shcherbakova, who had also made a strong impression at the 2023 concert. Her new work In a Heartbeat explored an engrossing narrative, one that grew out of pulse-derived drum clamour. A sudden outbreak of lyricism immediately made things uncertain, and this worked to the music’s advantage, defying attempts to define its character and make-up, by turns light and serious, jovial and anxious, suggestive and indifferent. The work became convoluted and dense, which only added to its ambiguity; a solo flute emerged, the density was dispersed, and a strangely nostalgic epilogue played out, half-tangible but elusive, enigmatic to the last.
Enigmatic in a different way was a concert given by Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Erle Kont-Vilson, under the heading “Birth of Light”. The theme of this year’s Estonian Music Days was ‘Stories’, and this event leaned into that more than any other. Conceived by Astra Irene Susi, and woven around the first two works (in the process slightly confusing their start and end points) before culminating in Susi’s own final piece, Emergence of Light (all three of them premières), i won’t pretend i understood the narrative, mainly because it was all in Estonian. Way more impactful – arguably the most in-your-face performance at this year’s festival – was Liis Jürgens‘ Whisperer. Sun Temple. Featuring a prominent solo timpani part, performed by Vambola Krigul, the piece was a stark polarisation between endless pounding from Krigul and its opposite, sparse, distant, strange music. Figuring out a connection – or a basis for the lack of connection – was challenging, suggesting elements of ritual and meditation, or contrasting western and eastern attitudes, or a simple desire to explore wildly disparate sonic behaviours.
A short but typically beguiling piece, Golden Egg, came from Maria Rostovtseva, though it was sonically more remote than is typical for her. The strings were tight and clustered, moving together but not particularly comfortably, until an ethereal sequence unexpectedly emerged. That was curious enough, but became tantalising later with the distinct sense of something discrete lying deep within the texture, but to varying degrees smeared, blurred and distorted. Grinding persisted, until the work halted – gave up? – with a short, high sigh. i echoed that sentiment: so often i come away from Rostovtseva’s music impressed but wishing it had lasted a whole lot longer. i’m not sure to what extent it’s her decision or the commission requirements, but i’m still looking forward to the day when she composes something with a much more extensive duration. i think we’ll all be surprised, and possibly amazed.
Some of the performances from this year’s festival are available to stream (for free) either as audio via Klassikaraadio and/or as video. Links below:
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra: audio / video
Tallinn Chamber Orchestra: video
