Tallinn-born Ester
Mägi graduated in 1951 and then
spent three years in Moscow in Shebalin's
post-graduate course. There she encountered
Veljo Tormis. Her Moscow graduation
composition was based on the Kalevipoeg
(Estonian national epic) and was
scored for male voice chorus, soloist
and orchestra. It was premiered in 1961
– surely something that should be recorded.
She taught at the Tallinn Conservatory
until her retirement in 1984.
Mägi's Vesper
is evening music - no religious
reference is intended. The music began
life for violin and piano. It is no
wonder that it has become popular in
Estonia. It is emotional yet dignified
- a great throbbing Sibelian hymn with
inflections possibly drawn in from Barber's
Adagio, RVW's Tallis Fantasia
and Rachmaninov's Vocalise.
I had to go back and play it again straightaway.
The Piano Concerto is an early work,
the earliest here, and is in a conservatively
nationalist-romantic mode with some
moments doing pretty candid obeisance
to Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov. The note
writer Urve Lippus claims Bartók
and Stravinsky. I just don't hear it
except passingly in the dancing Allegro
and then the folk voice is more to the
fore. It's a delightful work and very
straightforward in expression. Bukoolika
(or Bucolica) is a series
of short pastoral scenes for orchestra.
Impressions: Delian, swains' piping,
birdsong, dancing, shepherd calls, the
entrancing tinkle of icy bells (6.48)
and the like. Just occasionally I thought
of Nielsen. It's a warm piece and hearing
this recording reminds us that it was
taken down in concert. There is the
occasional cough and shuffle. It is
not by any means static as we can hear
at 3.27. Mägical stuff. It's unlike
Pärt's Cantus or Rautavaara's
Cantus Arcticus but somehow belongs
in the company of those works.
We are told that the
Variations are popular in Estonia.
They start glum and sombre. The piano
is sometimes used edgily and percussively.
At 2:23 its motoric impacts recall Petrushka
then its attack becomes more vicious
and cut-glass, rather like the similar
assaults in Panufnik's Piano Concerto.
This is a very different work from Mägi's
Piano Concerto. It is clearly from another
and less emotionally yielding era. From
four years previously comes the 13½
minute symphony in three micro movements:
2:30; 5:09; 6:08. The allegro assai
blazes forward ruthlessly and in
grim-faced uproar. There is something
of the more obstreperous writing of
Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra
here but there’s also the blow-torch
roar of the Soviet war symphony in full
flight. The Andante is more gentle
but the relaxation is overlaid with
a striding desolation. The long final
Presto keeps a firm grip on the
momentum and there's even a Dies
Irae reference (1.01). The brusque
strings and storming horns grippingly
recall the merciless writing of William
Schuman. By the way, the Symphony follows
with hardly any silence after the end
of the Variations.
Have your horizons
broadened and be happy about it. Toccata
and Martin Anderson score another palpable
hit. Mägi's name will from now
on be on your 'to collect' list. The
conspiratorial sliding march of the
final pages of the Symphony and its
underpinning ostinato belled discreetly
by the trombones will stay with you
as will the long held notes of the final
pages. This is marmoreal valedictory
and epilogic writing as memorable as
that of Bax or Petttersson or Shostakovich
but more concise than any of them.
Rob Barnett
Toccata
Catalogue
Ada Kuseoks (piano); Mati Mikalai
(piano); Tarmo Pajusaar (clarinet) 
Sound
Sample 
