Download Estonian Music and Culture 8 Lepo Sumera (1950

Estonian Music and Culture 8
Lepo Sumera (1950-2000) emerged from this group as the most serious composer. He worked
as a recording engineer at the Estonian Radio (several composers have done that job, including
Arvo Pärt, that is a unique possibility for a composers to learn to work with orchestra and different
ensembles). From 1978 he has been a teacher of composition at the Estonian Academy of Music
and for the last year he was a professor and head of the electronic music studio. In 1988-92 he was
the minister of culture, after that the chairman of the Estonian composers’ Union. Already in Soviet
time he participated in different composers’ summer courses abroad and travelled much. His most
significant works are for orchestra: symphonies, piano concerto, chamber music, electro-acoustic
works (including live-electronics – music combining living performance and electro-acoustical
means). During the 1970s he used free dodecaphony, chromatic modes and collage techniques, from
1981 (the 1st symphony) he wrote in a style that could be described as postminimal – diatonic
modes, long sections of motivic repetition, but complex multilayered textures; in the end of the
1980s his music acquires again more chromaticism and harmonic colours.
Erkki-Sven Tüür (1959) came to Tallinn from the island Hiiumaa, to study flute at the Tallinn
Music School, in 1984 he graduated Tallinn Conservatoire as a composer, after that he studied
privately with Lepo Sumera. His attitude to different composition techniques is rather free, he
himself comments that he is not afraid of eclecticism, but tries to study the possibilities of different
styles, including modernist sounds of the 1960s that were considered very out in the 1970s. For
him, structural principles and the combination of various materials are important in composing,
hence often used abstract titles of pieces – a series of Architectonics, Crystallisatio and others.
However, in his vocal works the meaning of text is very important – an oratorio Ante finem saeculi
(1986), Requiem in memoriam Peeter Lilje (1994). He was the initiator of new music festivals in
Tallinn Nyyd, that first took place in 1991 and has continued every second year. From the end of the
1980s he has spent much time abroad and many of his compositions have been commissioned by
orchestras and ensembles from different countries.
In the end of the 1980s music and singing was closely related to the national political
movements, particularly the summer of 1988 was full of spontaneious gatherings. At the song
festival field, people sang together with popular rock groups and many of the new songs were
composed using patriotic texts. Particularly some songs by Alo Mattiesen became extremely
popular. In this summer, not only national and patriotic pop songs, but also meetings of choral
groups and folk music festivals attracted masses. This enthusiasm continued for several years and
became known as the Singing Revolution. After Estonia became independent in 1991, the
revolutionary enthusiasm slowly quieted down. However, song festivals have continued in their
traditional way after every five years. Also, traditional music is popular and it has become a kind of
music related to alternative way of life, opposed to commercial culture. There are several groups of
young people, who sing authentic songs in the regilaul style, others use them as source material for
their own arrangements. An important scene for those people is Viljandi Festival of Traditional
Music.
After Estonia became independent, many musicians have entered international musical life –
both performers and composers. Most composition students have spent some time abroad,
participating in different summer courses, master classes, etc. An important event for new Estonian
music was the foundation of the Studio for Electro-acoustical Music at the Academy of Music in the
mid-1990s and the corresponding curricula for e-music and sound engineering. Most composers
combine new technology with traditional means in their work (Helena Tulve, Toivo Tulev, Margo
Kõlar and others).