Music of Estonia
Encyclopedia
The earliest mentioning of Estonian singing and dancing dates back to Saxo Grammaticus
' Gesta Danorum
(c. 1179). Saxo speaks of Estonian warriors who sang at night while waiting for an epic battle. The Estonian folk music tradition is broadly divided into 2 periods. The older folksongs are also referred to as runic songs, songs in the poetic metre regivärss the tradition shared by all Baltic-Finnic peoples. Runic singing was widespread among Estonians until the 18th century, when it started to be replaced by rhythmic folksongs. Professional Estonian musicians emerged in the late 19th-century at the time of Estonian national awakening
. Nowadays the most known Estonian composers are Arvo Pärt
and Veljo Tormis
.
s, ballad
s and epic
legend
s. Much of the early scholarly study of runo-song was done in the 1860s by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald
, who used them to compose the Estonian national epic
, Kalevipoeg
. By the 20th century, though, runo-song had largely disappeared from Estonia, with vibrant traditions existing only in Setumaa and Kihnu
.
Traditional wind instrument
s derived from those used by shepherd
s were once widespread, but are now more rarely played. Other instruments, including the fiddle
, zither
, concertina
and accordion
are used to play polka
or other dance music. The kantele
(Estonian: kannel) is a native instrument that is now more popular among Estonian-Americans than in its homeland. Nevertheless, Estonian kannel musicians include Igor Tõnurist and Tuule Kann.
the first professional Estonian musicians emerged. The most significant was Rudolf Tobias
(1873–1918) and Artur Kapp
(1878–1952). Other composers followed, such as Mart Saar
(1882–1963), Artur Lemba
(1885–1963), Heino Eller
(1887–1970) and Cyrillus Kreek
(1889–1962).
government
began encouraging folk art from its constituent republics. Local ethnographic bands were formed after Leiko, a choir
from Värska
, came together in 1964, while a less regionally-distinct form of Estonian folk music was soon promoted, beginning with the formation of Leigarid in 1969. The 1950s and 60s also saw the publication of Herbert Tampere's Eesti rahvalaule viisidega (Estonian folk songs with melodies), a collection of folk songs. The first LP of traditional music, Eesti rahvalaule ja pillilugusid (Estonian folk songs and instrumental pieces) was released in 1967. In the 1980s, a series of festivals took place that helped stimulate increasing agitation for freedom of expression; these included the 1985 conference of CIOFF
, the 1986 Viru säru and 1989's Baltica.
Estonia also produced a number of classical composers of high repute during the twentieth century, including Rudolf Tobias
(1873–1918), Heino Eller
(1887–1970), Artur Kapp
(1878–1952), Artur Lemba
(1885–1963), Mart Saar
(1882–1963), Lepo Sumera
(1950–2000), Eduard Tubin
(1905–1982) and the living composers mentioned below.
and the Estonian-Australian choir Kiri-uu. Other modern Estonian musicians include the influential composers René Eespere
(1953–), Ester Mägi
(1922–), Arvo Pärt
(1935–), Urmas Sisask
(1960–), Veljo Tormis
(1930–) and Erkki-Sven Tüür
(1959–).
There are several yearly music festivals of Estonia
.
The girl band Vanilla Ninja
are one of the best-known Estonians in popular music
, having had success in several Central Europe
an countries. Kerli has had moderate success in the United States.
Metsatöll
is a folk-metal band combining runo-song and traditional folk instruments with metal. Another Estonian folk metal group is Raud-ants
, who performed at the annual minority language music festival Liet-Lavlut
with a song in Votic
.
Saxo Grammaticus
Saxo Grammaticus also known as Saxo cognomine Longus was a Danish historian, thought to have been a secular clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, foremost advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He is the author of the first full history of Denmark.- Life :The Jutland Chronicle gives...
' Gesta Danorum
Gesta Danorum
Gesta Danorum is a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th century author Saxo Grammaticus . It is the most ambitious literary undertaking of medieval Denmark and is an essential source for the nation's early history...
(c. 1179). Saxo speaks of Estonian warriors who sang at night while waiting for an epic battle. The Estonian folk music tradition is broadly divided into 2 periods. The older folksongs are also referred to as runic songs, songs in the poetic metre regivärss the tradition shared by all Baltic-Finnic peoples. Runic singing was widespread among Estonians until the 18th century, when it started to be replaced by rhythmic folksongs. Professional Estonian musicians emerged in the late 19th-century at the time of Estonian national awakening
Estonian national awakening
The Estonian Age of Awakening is a period in history where Estonians came to acknowledge themselves as a nation deserving the right to govern themselves. This period is considered to begin in 1850s with greater rights being granted to commoners and to end with the declaration of the Republic of...
. Nowadays the most known Estonian composers are Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
and Veljo Tormis
Veljo Tormis
Veljo Tormis is an Estonian composer, regarded to be one of the greatest living choral composers and one of the most important composers of the 20th century in Estonia. Internationally, his fame arises chiefly from his extensive body of choral music, which exceeds 500 individual choral songs, most...
.
Folk music
Estonian runo-song (Estonian: regilaul) has been extensively recorded and studied, especially those sung by women. They can come in many forms, including work songWork song
A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a specific form of work, either sung while conducting a task or a song linked to a task or trade which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song....
s, ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s and epic
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s. Much of the early scholarly study of runo-song was done in the 1860s by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald
Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald
Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald was an Estonian writer, who is considered to be the father of the national literature for the country.-Life:Friedrich's parents were serfs at the Jõepere estate, Virumaa. His father worked as a granary keeper and his mother was a chambermaid...
, who used them to compose the Estonian national epic
National epic
A national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation; not necessarily a nation-state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group with aspirations to independence or autonomy...
, Kalevipoeg
Kalevipoeg
Kalevipoeg is an epic poem by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald held to be the Estonian national epic.- Origins : There existed an oral tradition within Ancient Estonia of legends explaining the origin of the world...
. By the 20th century, though, runo-song had largely disappeared from Estonia, with vibrant traditions existing only in Setumaa and Kihnu
Kihnu
Kihnu is an island in the Baltic Sea. With an area of 16,4 km² it is the largest island in the Gulf of Riga and the seventh largest island of Estonia. The length of the island is 7 km and width 3.3 km, the highest point is at 8.9 m above sea level.The island belongs to the Pärnu...
.
Traditional wind instrument
Wind instrument
A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator , in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into a mouthpiece set at the end of the resonator. The pitch of the vibration is determined by the length of the tube and by manual modifications of...
s derived from those used by shepherd
Shepherd
A shepherd is a person who tends, feeds or guards flocks of sheep.- Origins :Shepherding is one of the oldest occupations, beginning some 6,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat and especially their wool...
s were once widespread, but are now more rarely played. Other instruments, including the fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
, zither
Zither
The zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary citera, northwestern Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe and East Asian cultures, including China...
, concertina
Concertina
A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it. When pressed, the buttons travel in the same direction as the bellows, unlike accordion buttons which travel perpendicularly to it...
and accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
are used to play polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
or other dance music. The kantele
Kantele
A kantele or kannel is a traditional plucked string instrument of the zither family native to Finland, Estonia, and Karelia. It is related to the Russian gusli, the Latvian kokle and the Lithuanian kanklės. Together these instruments make up the family known as Baltic psalteries...
(Estonian: kannel) is a native instrument that is now more popular among Estonian-Americans than in its homeland. Nevertheless, Estonian kannel musicians include Igor Tõnurist and Tuule Kann.
National awakening
After the Estonian national awakeningEstonian national awakening
The Estonian Age of Awakening is a period in history where Estonians came to acknowledge themselves as a nation deserving the right to govern themselves. This period is considered to begin in 1850s with greater rights being granted to commoners and to end with the declaration of the Republic of...
the first professional Estonian musicians emerged. The most significant was Rudolf Tobias
Rudolf Tobias
Rudolf Tobias was the first Estonian professional composer, as well as a professional organist. He studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory...
(1873–1918) and Artur Kapp
Artur Kapp
Artur Kapp was an Estonian composer.Born in Suure-Jaani, Estonia, then part of the Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire, he was the son of Joosep Kapp, who was also a classically trained musician...
(1878–1952). Other composers followed, such as Mart Saar
Mart Saar
Mart Saar was an Estonian composer, organist and collector of folk songs.-Childhood:Saar was born at the small borough of Hüpassaare, Estonia, then part of the Livonian Governorate, Russian Empire, to a family of forest keepers. He received his education in the village school at Kaansoo and the...
(1882–1963), Artur Lemba
Artur Lemba
Artur Lemba was an Estonian composer and piano teacher, and one of the most important figures in Estonian classical music. Artur and his older brother Theodor were the first professional pianists in Estonia to give concerts abroad. Artur's 1905 opera Sabina was the first opera composed by an...
(1885–1963), Heino Eller
Heino Eller
Heino Eller was an Estonian composer and composition teacher.Eller was born in Tartu, where he took private lessons in violin and music theory, played in several ensembles and orchestras, and performed as violin soloist. In 1907 he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to study violin. From...
(1887–1970) and Cyrillus Kreek
Cyrillus Kreek
Cyrillus Kreek was an Estonian composer.Kreek studied trombone and composition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory from 1908 to 1916 in the years immediately prior to the Russian Revolution, then worked as music teacher first in his native Haapsalu , at the Tartu Music College and later...
(1889–1962).
20th century
In the 1960s, the SovietSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
began encouraging folk art from its constituent republics. Local ethnographic bands were formed after Leiko, a choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
from Värska
Värska
Värska is a small borough in Värska Parish, Põlva County in southeastern Estonia.- External links :*...
, came together in 1964, while a less regionally-distinct form of Estonian folk music was soon promoted, beginning with the formation of Leigarid in 1969. The 1950s and 60s also saw the publication of Herbert Tampere's Eesti rahvalaule viisidega (Estonian folk songs with melodies), a collection of folk songs. The first LP of traditional music, Eesti rahvalaule ja pillilugusid (Estonian folk songs and instrumental pieces) was released in 1967. In the 1980s, a series of festivals took place that helped stimulate increasing agitation for freedom of expression; these included the 1985 conference of CIOFF
CIOFF
The International Council of Organizations of Folklore Festivals and Folk Art , is an International Nongovernmental Organization in formal consultative relation with UNESCO. CIOFF has 65 full members, 5 associate members and 18 corresponding members worldwide...
, the 1986 Viru säru and 1989's Baltica.
Estonia also produced a number of classical composers of high repute during the twentieth century, including Rudolf Tobias
Rudolf Tobias
Rudolf Tobias was the first Estonian professional composer, as well as a professional organist. He studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory...
(1873–1918), Heino Eller
Heino Eller
Heino Eller was an Estonian composer and composition teacher.Eller was born in Tartu, where he took private lessons in violin and music theory, played in several ensembles and orchestras, and performed as violin soloist. In 1907 he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to study violin. From...
(1887–1970), Artur Kapp
Artur Kapp
Artur Kapp was an Estonian composer.Born in Suure-Jaani, Estonia, then part of the Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire, he was the son of Joosep Kapp, who was also a classically trained musician...
(1878–1952), Artur Lemba
Artur Lemba
Artur Lemba was an Estonian composer and piano teacher, and one of the most important figures in Estonian classical music. Artur and his older brother Theodor were the first professional pianists in Estonia to give concerts abroad. Artur's 1905 opera Sabina was the first opera composed by an...
(1885–1963), Mart Saar
Mart Saar
Mart Saar was an Estonian composer, organist and collector of folk songs.-Childhood:Saar was born at the small borough of Hüpassaare, Estonia, then part of the Livonian Governorate, Russian Empire, to a family of forest keepers. He received his education in the village school at Kaansoo and the...
(1882–1963), Lepo Sumera
Lepo Sumera
Lepo Sumera was an Estonian composer and teacher. Considered one of Estonia's most renowned composers along with Heino Eller and Arvo Pärt, he was also his country's Minister of Culture from 1988 to 1992 during the days of the Singing Revolution.He was born in Tallinn and studied with Veljo...
(1950–2000), Eduard Tubin
Eduard Tubin
-Life:Tubin was born in Torila, Governorate of Livonia, Estonia. Both his parents were music lovers, and his father played trumpet and trombone in the village band. His first taste of music came at school where he learned flute and balalaika. Later, his father swapped a cow for a piano, and the...
(1905–1982) and the living composers mentioned below.
Today
These celebrations of traditional life have inspired multiple later composers who modernized traditional music, including Olev Muska and Coralie Joyce, Kirile Loo, Veljo TormisVeljo Tormis
Veljo Tormis is an Estonian composer, regarded to be one of the greatest living choral composers and one of the most important composers of the 20th century in Estonia. Internationally, his fame arises chiefly from his extensive body of choral music, which exceeds 500 individual choral songs, most...
and the Estonian-Australian choir Kiri-uu. Other modern Estonian musicians include the influential composers René Eespere
René Eespere
René Eespere is an Estonian composer. Eespere's music is noted for its spiritual dimension; he has also incorporated elements from pop music . His best-regarded works are Glorificatio and Two Jubilations , both written for mixed chorus.-References:...
(1953–), Ester Mägi
Ester Mägi
Ester Mägi is an Estonian composer, widely regarded as the First Lady of Estonian Music.Much of her work consists of choral and chamber music, but her few symphonic pieces are also highly regarded. She trained initially under Mart Saar at the Tallinn Conservatory, then from 1951-54 at the Moscow...
(1922–), Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
(1935–), Urmas Sisask
Urmas Sisask
Urmas Sisask is an Estonian composer.One of the major inspirations for his music is astronomy.Based on the trajectories of the planets in the solar system, he created the "planetal scale", a mode consisting of the Musical notes C#, D, F#, G#, and A...
(1960–), Veljo Tormis
Veljo Tormis
Veljo Tormis is an Estonian composer, regarded to be one of the greatest living choral composers and one of the most important composers of the 20th century in Estonia. Internationally, his fame arises chiefly from his extensive body of choral music, which exceeds 500 individual choral songs, most...
(1930–) and Erkki-Sven Tüür
Erkki-Sven Tüür
Erkki-Sven Tüür is an Estonian composer.Tüür was born in Kärdla on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa. He studied flute and percussion at the Tallinn Music School from 1976 to 1980 and composition with Jaan Rääts at the Tallinn Academy of Music and privately with Lepo Sumera from 1980 to 1984...
(1959–).
There are several yearly music festivals of Estonia
Music festivals of Estonia
This is an incomplete list of music festivals held yearly in Estonia:...
.
The girl band Vanilla Ninja
Vanilla Ninja
Vanilla Ninja is a three-piece Estonian girl band which has enjoyed chart success in a number of countries across Europe, especially in Estonia, Germany and Austria....
are one of the best-known Estonians in popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
, having had success in several Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
an countries. Kerli has had moderate success in the United States.
Metsatöll
Metsatöll
Metsatöll is an Estonian folk metal band.The name "Metsatöll" is an ancient Estonian euphemism for wolf, which is reflected in the harshness of their lyrics...
is a folk-metal band combining runo-song and traditional folk instruments with metal. Another Estonian folk metal group is Raud-ants
Raud-Ants
Raud-Ants is an Estonian folk metal band from Viljandi that was formed in 2002. Raud-Ants combines Estonian folk music with Heavy metal. The band was raised in Tartu and Tallinn....
, who performed at the annual minority language music festival Liet-Lavlut
Liet-Lavlut
Liet-Lávlut or Liet Ynternasjonaal is an annual festival for musicians who speak any of Europe's minority languages that was held the first time in Friesland in 2002...
with a song in Votic
Votic language
Votic or Votian is the language spoken by the Votes of Ingria. It is closely related to Estonian and belongs to the Finnic subgroup of Uralic languages. Votic is spoken only in Krakolye and Luzhitsy, two villages in the Kingisepp district, and is close to extinction...
.
See also
- Estonian Song FestivalEstonian Song FestivalThe Estonian Song Festival is one of the largest amateur choral events in the world, a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity...
- List of Estonian choirs
- Estonian rockEstonian rockThe Estonian rock music scene saw its beginnings in the mid-sixties during Nikita Khrushchev's thaw in the Soviet Union and the rise of British bands all over the world. The first Estonian rock-groups were primarily high school bands playing cover versions of the current UK Top 10...
- Viljandi Folk Music Festival