{"id":19919,"date":"2022-03-28T21:49:25","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T18:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.epcc.ee\/2022\/03\/sounds-of-estonia-kings-place-review-one-of-the-worlds-great-choirs-on-spellbinding-form\/"},"modified":"2022-03-29T21:53:03","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T18:53:03","slug":"sounds-of-estonia-kings-place-review-one-of-the-worlds-great-choirs-on-spellbinding-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.epcc.ee\/en\/2022\/03\/sounds-of-estonia-kings-place-review-one-of-the-worlds-great-choirs-on-spellbinding-form\/","title":{"rendered":"Sounds of Estonia, Kings Place review – one of the world’s great choirs on spellbinding form"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Singing, jazz piano and string music in two of the festival’s four concerts<\/h2>\n
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The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir at Kings Place, Matthew Johnson<\/span><\/div>\n
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The history of\u00a0Estonia<\/a>\u00a0has been described as \u201ca story set to song\u201d. The Estonian activist Heinz Valk called singing \u201cour nation\u2019s most glorious form of self-expression.\u201d There are, of course, other nations where singing is seen as an expression of national identity, but probably none more so than the Baltic country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The fully professional Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, founded in 1981, is one of the great choirs of the world. In Kings Place Hall One, directed by their genial founder T\u00f5nu Kaljuste, they could use the wonderfully lively acoustic to allow their unique European-yet-Slavonic sound and their astonishing tonal and expressive range to be heard to best advantage in this concert, part of Kings Place’s year-long “Voices Unwrapped” sequence.<\/p>\n

Kaljuste (pictued below<\/strong>\u00a0by Matthew Johnson) gives minimal gestures, but the effect they have, the way they convey meaning to the choir, is palpable. He opens the left hand as if to release magic dust. He points an index finger as if dotting an “i”. Or he just smiles gamely for the briefest of moments at a singer \u2013 who then knows exactly what is expected.<\/p>\n

The choir\u2019s two-part programme was cleverly contrasted. In the first part they explored the long delicate lines of the devotional music of Arvo P\u00e4rt. The purity of clashing minor seconds in the soprano parts was jaw-dropping, and the choir\u2019s lead high soprano, Annika L\u00f5hmus, was superb. \u201cThe Deer\u2019s Cry\u201d has been recorded by many choirs, but the Estonians bring a fragility and a leanness to it that makes the intensity build all the more poignant. And there may be no choir which balances endings as purposefully and poignantly as this one. Perhaps they were at their most affecting in the hushed ending of \u201cDopo la Vittoria.\u201d Theythe first half sequence with \u201cRejoice, rejoice, rejoice!\u201d It showed that this choir has no technical barriers whatsoever when it turns its hand to angular, angry atonality. Whether that point really needed to be made is another question\u2026<\/p>\n

In the second half we witnessed the group’s more theatrical and rootsier side with some glorious folk song cycles and scenas by Veijo Tormis. Like other cold nations (Quebec does it too) Estonia celebrates St John\u2019s Day, and Tormis\u2019s cycle for the midsummer feast is mesmeric. The \u201cSwing Songs\u201d for a swaying women\u2019s chorus are completely captivating. The \u201cCurse Upon Iron\u201d with \u00a0Kaljuste wielding the drum, is a powerful work. The encores Arvo P\u00e4rt\u2019s \u201cDa pacem” and Britten\u2019s \u201cConcord\u201d felt like much-needed prayers for peace.\u00a0Friday\u2019s concert by the O\/Modernt string orchestra (pictured above<\/strong>\u00a0by Matthew Johnson) with soloists jazz pianist\/composer Kristjan Randalu and clarinettist Sacha Rattle was another insight into the sheer quality and breadth of Estonian music. A highlight of the first half was Erkki-Sven T\u00fc\u00fcr’s\u00a0Action-Passion-Illusion<\/em>\u00a0(1993). The musical language is clearly tonal, but T\u00fc\u00fcr enjoys setting that against clusters of dissonance. The work was written for a symphonic string section, but the chamber forces of O\/Modernt made the case that it might sound even more appealing when they play it than in its weightier original guise as, for example, in the recorded version conducted by Anu Tali.<\/p>\n

The second half consisted of a seven-part sequence of works in which Kristjan Randalu intersperses folk arrangements around works by P\u00e4rt. Randalu is instinctively a virtuosic player, and he has a distinct leaning for jaunty asymmetric meters. And yet this sequence was at its best when the mode of expression was at its simplest, in\u00a0P\u00e4rt’s haunting “Darf Ich” and in the final delicate and direct folksong played as an encore.<\/p>\n

Sounds of Estonia<\/em>, a sequence of four concerts and other events at Kings Place, with the support of the Estonian Embassy, was, or rather is, timely. To say the least, the\u00a0Russian<\/a>\u00a0invasion of Ukraine evokes the bitterest of collective memories for Estonians. The programme also included performances by two leading Estonian singers: singer\/violinist\/electronic artist\/composer Maarja Nuut, and Mari Kalkun, a folk singer who celebrates her Southern Estonian V\u00f5ru heritage and language. There was also a screening of the 2006 film\u00a0The Singing Revolution<\/em>.<\/p>\n