"I never dreamed my music would be understood outside of Estonia," said composer Veljo Tormis, 80, whose agitated, folk-based works at the Nargen Festival were a flashpoint in Estonia's liberation and have since been taken up by the Temple University Concert Choir, among others. "But more and more, it seems people do understand."
"Something smells in Veljo's music," says conductor/festival founder Tonu Kaljuste. "It smells of nature."
With nature dominating Naissaar (year-round population: two), the music is at home here (though another Tormis festival concert - full orchestra, chorus, and a huge video screen - filled the expanse of a former munitions factory in Tallinn with people in evening clothes sitting on makeshift bleachers).
Clearly, Estonians aren't burdened by typical classical traditions. Other Baltic composers who have earned international reputations - not to mention mainstream discographies on labels such as ECM - sound nothing alike. The most popular, Estonian Arvo Pärt, 74, favors an ascetic, chantlike language. Extremes of exaltation and despair are neighbors in the music of Latvia's Peteris Vasks. Estonian Erkki-Sven Tüür conjures hallucinatory journeys to the center of the Earth in symphonies with subtitles like Magma.
New compositional personalities seem to arise every six months, such as Eriks Esenvalds of Riga, Latvia, a former high school teacher whose spellbinding vocal works prompted the Philadelphia choir The Crossing to commission a piece it will premiere in June, while the first all-Esenvalds recording comes out this fall. Are there more high school teachers here who go home at night to write masterworks?
