{"id":4895,"date":"2011-12-21T10:37:38","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T08:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erso.ee\/maaratlemata-en\/commemorating-endurance\/"},"modified":"2022-08-22T07:19:56","modified_gmt":"2022-08-22T05:19:56","slug":"commemorating-endurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erso.ee\/en\/2011\/12\/commemorating-endurance\/","title":{"rendered":"Commemorating Endurance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second of ERSO\u2019s 85th jubilee concerts was a remembrance of dark chapters in the history of north-eastern Europe but also a celebration of the human spirit overcoming and validating suffering through art.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and Estonian Public Broadcasting have a shared lineage dating to 18 December 1926, the day that broadcasting company Raadio-Ringh\u00e4\u00e4ling transmitted the first concert of the forerunner of today\u2019s symphony orchestra. ERSO and ERR are linked to this moment during Estonia\u2019s first independence. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Befitting an evening of gravitas, the Estonian National Anthem was played to start the program, the full house rising to its feet. And the right man was in charge; maestro Neeme J\u00e4rvi was at the rostrum resplendent in fancy dress, leading his colleagues through the opening piece for the night, Eduard Tubin\u2019s Symphony No 5 in B minor.<\/p>\n

Tubin and J\u00e4rvi too have a somewhat shared destiny as men who left Estonia due to political crisis; Tubin for Sweden during World War II as the Soviet Union poised to reoccupy Estonia and J\u00e4rvi to the United States in 1980. It was in America that J\u00e4rvi brought attention to Tubin\u2019s works and recorded his symphonies. The Symphony No 5 (1946) was the first work that Tubin composed in exile. Its initial movement evokes calamity; dramatic and frenetic with powerful percussion.<\/p>\n

The second movement slows the tumult. Gentle pizzicato and soothing passages for strings characterize the middle of the symphony; it is dreamy and opaque.<\/p>\n

The No 5\u2019s final chapter ebbs and flows back to its origin. This symphony is a plaintive yet beautiful work. A catharsis for a tragedy that Tubin knew would continue indefinitely. It concludes with the muscular ominous drumming of the first movement.<\/p>\n

After an intermission that included wine provided by ERSO for the jubilee, the musical fare didn\u2019t lighten in the least. Dmitry Shostakovich\u2019s Symphony No 7 in C Major, Opus 60, the famous \u201cLeningrad Symphony\u201d, continued the theme of struggle in difficult circumstances. The No 7 is forever associated with the 900 day siege of Leningrad by invading German forces and by extension, due to its promotion by the Soviet State and its western allies, with the massive sacrifices of the Soviet peoples and resistance to fascism during the Second World War. Befitting its theme, it is a massive, bombastic work and one of the longest in the canon, coming in at well over an hour.<\/p>\n

Shostakovich pulled out all the stops for the No 7. It contains seemingly everything: parts for vibes, parts for saxophone, parts for piano. Sections of near nauseating underlying dissonance and passages of exquisite beauty. In a piece like this the musical thread can get lost, as it surely did for many concertgoers.<\/p>\n

It is worth noting that after the fall of the Soviet Union evidence came to light that much of the No 7 was written before the German invasion. Shostakovich was a bit of a dissident at heart, and the Leningrad Symphony\u2019s ominous themes, especially the opening “invasion” passage can be seen as being as much of an indictment of Stalin\u2019s purges as German conquest. In this sense Shostakovich\u2019s work is a fitting counterpart to Tubin\u2019s. Both commemorate the struggle against oppression in all its forms.<\/p>\n

ERSO and Neeme J\u00e4rvi deserve plaudits for bringing these works to life in the present; an artistic history lesson conveyed through the genius of composition and performance.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/news.err.ee\/culture\/d4a01ea3-763f-4309-8703-211126f06535<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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