Estonian Incantations I
Tauno AINTS (b 1975)
Vitsa (Flogging) concerto for electric guitar and mixed choir (2013) [20:56]
…teid täname… (…we thank you…) for mixed choir and improvisers (2013) [6:36]
Sven GRÜNBERG (b 1956)
Kas ma Sind leian? (Will I Find You?) for chamber choir and seven-string acoustic guitar (2016) [8:01]
Robert JÜRJENDAL (b 1966)
See öö oli pikk (The Night Was Long) for chamber choir and three electric guitars (2013) [11:05]
Raul SÖÖT (b 1969)
Vaikusestki vaiksem (Quieter than Silence) for chamber choir and two guitars (2013) [9:57]
Marzi Nyman (guitar)
Andre Maaker (seven-string acoustic guitar)
Ain Agan (fretless guitar)
Paul Daniel (electric guitar)
Annika Lõhmus (vocals)
Weekend Guitar Trio
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir/Kaspars Putniņš
rec. 2016, United Methodist Church, Tallinn, Estonia
Texts and translations included
TOCCATA NEXT TOCN0002 [56:36]
In CD terms rarely is the phrase “And now for something completely different” more apt than with this disc; choral works accompanied by one or more guitars. The idea for the disc came from Ain Agan who plays fretless guitar on the record and who organises the guitar festival in Viljandi in southern Estonia. He wanted to create something different for the festival and this he has certainly achieved.
The first work, Tauno Aints’ Vitsa (Flogging) reminded me of the fabulous disc Officium in which Jan Garbarek improvised on soprano sax while the Hilliard Ensemble sang songs from the 12-16th centuries. This work also has that transcendental, otherworldly feel to it. The first part, A charm against flogging is a strident piece that sounds to me more of a challenge than a charm but it is highly effective and the guitar acts as a junior partner to the choir’s declamatory outpourings until the closing moments when its rock credentials makes an impressive finish. Its companion piece A charm against pain by contrast is gentle with a feeling of balm after the anger expressed before.
Sven Grünberg’s Will I find you? is an eight minute piece that contains these four words alone and the music is representative of three stages in one’s life: the search for a companion to love when one is young, the search for oneself and, finally the attempt to find meaning in life and in death and the composer hopes the stages are obvious within the music which, indeed they are. His other more general aim is to make his musical language, and through it himself as a person, as “simple and user-friendly as possible” which he has also managed to do with this profoundly spiritual piece whose Spanish guitar sounding accompaniment is perfect in context. It is a far cry from his prog-rock beginnings as a rock pathfinder when Estonia was still part of the Soviet Union.
The disc’s overriding element of other-worldly atmosphere continues with Robert Jürjendal’s The night was long with the chorus this time accompanied by “electronically modified and ambient guitar fabric” courtesy of the Weekend Guitar Trio, one of whose members is Jürjendal himself. Once again the aim, in this case to represent “a strange dreamlike flight through the unknown” succeeds handsomely.
This other-worldliness pervades every piece as each involves a deeply felt spirituality on the part of the composers, not so much as a result of any personally held beliefs I feel, but as a genuine attempt to understand and communicate through music the very essence of music itself which goes beyond the aim of pure entertainment. This aim is best summarised by Raul Sööt when writing about his piece Quieter than silence; that the music: “was born out of thinking about the original nature of music. I see that although we usually make music to entertain ourselves, there’s still a deep primordial layer of prayers, devotional songs and the desire to experience something bigger, maybe even infinite. But the infinite itself can’t be described. The act of describing itself sets borders to the infinite, just as sound borders silence. Somewhere in that depth there’s a subtle transition between them. It’s the transitional area that I’ve tried to examine here.” This feeling is a common denominator in every one of the works on the disc which concludes with We thank you by Tauno Aints in which all seven guitars join in a piece that has an almost medieval feel to the choral part, the interpretation of which is left to the conductor while the improvising guitars make of the material the chorus presents it in the only way improvisers can do, thus collectively creating something utterly unique on every occasion.
I conclude as I began that this disc really is something completely different and is one of those that grows on you the more often you listen leaving the listener feeling that they have experienced something quite uniquely magical.
Steve Arloff
Previous Review: Richard Hanlon
