David Oistrakh Festival a Jewel on the Baltic

Note: The 2008 David Oistrakh Festival celebrating the centenary of the birth of the legendary violinist, takes place July 17-Aug. 1 in Pärnu, Estonia, complete schedule to be announced.  For information, visit www.oistfest.ee.

 

Pärnu Concert Hall, Pärnu, Estonia (photos by Mary Ellyn Hutton)

The three-week David Oistrakh Festival in Pärnu, Estonia is like a jewel tucked away in a drawer. In this small town on the Baltic Sea, a 90-minute drive from Tallinn, one can experience a wide range of fine music in some of the loveliest and most congenial venues imaginable.
   Russian violinist David Oistrakh, for whom the festival is named, spent his summers here. Oistrakh’s wood-frame cottage, once filled with the sound of
chamber music, is just around the corner from Tervis Spa, one of a network of internationally known health spas located in Pärnu.
   Imagine: You are walking down a narrow, tree-lined street. Sea gulls and barn swallows fly overhead. On your left is the Pärnu River where it empties into the Baltic, shops, cafes and baroque, red-spired Elizabeth Church on your right. Pärnu’s brand new Kontserdimaja (Concert Hall) sparkles in the sunlight as you turn onto Lai St. where the City Center Bridge leads across the river.

outdoor cafe in Pärnu, Estonia

Elisabeth Lutheran Church in Pärnu, Estonia

   Ushers in straw hats take your ticket 100 Estonian kroons (about $8) is the top price and you head upstairs to the concert hall, a light, bright space with a
single gallery encircling the main floor. Acoustics are fine-tuned and warm, and the intimacy of the room (896 seats) draws you into the performance.
   At intermission, you enjoy a glass of wine and stroll onto a balcony facing the river. The sun is beginning to dip toward the horizon (sunset in July is 10-11 p.m.). At the concert’s end, ushers present arms full of flowers including blue cornflowers, Estonia’s national flower to the performers. It is a short walk
afterwards to one of the town’s many restaurants and cafes for a late evening dinner as the sun finally sets.

Pärnu River at sunset, July, 2006 (circa 11 p.m.)

Munga Restaurant in Pärnu . Estonia

   The 2006 Oistrakh Festival boasted 21 concerts July 2-22, featuring, among others: the St. Petersburg Festival Chamber Orchestra led by Neeme Järvi, Estonian National Orchestra led by Paavo Järvi, Kroumata Percussion Ensemble of Sweden, violist Kim Kashkashian and pianist Lydia Artymiw, Norway’s Trio Medieval, Estonia’s early music ensemble Hortus Musicus, cellist Ramon Jaffe, Israel’s Aviv Quartet, pianist Antti Siirala, oboist Kalev Kuljus, flutist Sharon Bezaly, harpist Katherine Gima, viola da gamba virtuoso Holger Faust-Peters and harpsichordist Iren Lill, Renaissance lutenist Hopkinson Smith, the RTE Vanbrugh Quartet of Ireland, soprano Patricia Rozario, bass-baritone Lionel Lhote and an opera gala with rising young singers from Moscow.
 

Paavo Järvi coaching Arndt Heyer in a master class onstage at Pärnu Concert Hall

A highlight of the annual event is the week-long Neeme Järvi Summer Academy, a master course for young conductors held concurrently with the festival since 2000. Student-led concerts are popular with audiences, who enjoy hearing the newest young talent (15 students this year) and mixing with Järvi, a national hero whose return to his native country is always warmly welcomed. This year Paavo Jarvi, whose growing fame is likewise shedding luster on Estonia, shared teaching honors with his father.
   Music in Pärnu is virtually an equal match of performers, venues and creature comforts even the natural world. *

Rüütli Street, Pärnu, Estonia

Catherine Orthodox Church, Pärnu, Estonia

The sea is warm, shallow and inviting along Pärnu’s famous white sand beach. The parks are green and cool, and I have never seen a pink-and-gold sunrise like the one I experienced on the drive back to Tallinn for my return flight to the U.S.
   I attended 14 of the 21concerts (some conflicted with master course sessions). All were excellent. Some, like Kroumata, Hortus Musicus, Trio Medieval and the St. Petersburg Festival Chamber Orchestra with Neeme Järvi, were among the best I have heard anywhere. Here, in nutshell reviews, are my favorites:

• July 2, Pärnu Concert Hall. Kroumata Percussion Ensemble. Pärnu City Orchestra. Conductor Kiyotaka Teraoka. The six percussionists had the first half to themselves, emerging one by one from pitch darkness into light in Swedish composer Arne Mellnäs’ “Fragile,” an open weave of bowed crotales and marimba, rubbed glass and synthesizers. Ukrainian-Estonian Galina Grigoryeva’s “There is a Time for Autumn” with its plaintive slide whistle evoking the fading season, was recorded by Kroumata earlier in the day for a projected festival CD. The fun came after intermission in Rodion Shchedrin’s irreverent “Carmen” Suite for percussion and orchestra. Composed for the Bolshoi Theater and Shchedrin’s wife ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, the witty, souped-up work ended with Kroumata in full voice on the “Toreador” Song.
  

• July 5, Pärnu Concert Hall. Estonian National Orchestra. Conductor Paavo Järvi. Pianist Anika Vavic. Serbian born Vavic made a strong impression in Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, which she played with muscle, sensitivity and arresting facility. Järvi drew tears and rattled the rafters in Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony, letting it be known that the Estonian National Orchestra, with whom he has made a series of superlative recordings, is on its way to becoming one of the best in Europe.
  

• July 8, Elizabeth Church. Hortus Musicus. Conductor/violinist Andres Mustonen. Cellist Allar Kaasik. Mustonen performed and led an engrossing, ear-opening program of mostly 21st-century East European music. Works by Arvo Pärt and Alexander Knaifel breathed serenity, Erkki-Sven Tüür spiked his „Salve Regina” with dissonance and Peeter Vähi’s „In Memoriam Helle Mustonen” bore his characteristic Eastern flavor. Kaasik compelled listeners with his slow, hypnotic „Lacrimosa” from Valentin Silvestrov’s „Requiem for Larissa,” arranged for solo cello.
  

• July 9, Pärnu Kontserdimaja. Pärnu Festival Orchestra. Conductors from Neeme Jarvi’s Summer Academy. Violinist Tatiana Berman. Berman worked beautifully with conductors Teraoka and Mark Heron in Beethoven’s Romances, Op.40 and 50, on the first student-led program, which also included Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony. Narrator Elmar Trink drew smiles aplenty in Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals” with American composer Bruce Adolphe’s witty poems, translated into Estonian.
  

• July 10, Elizabeth Church. Trio Medieval. Singers Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Torunn Ostrem Ossum pushed back the clock in the chandelier-lit church, where the Black Cross, a symbol of Pärnu from the Middle Ages, hangs on the wall. Their spellbinding program spanned the centuries, from anonymous 13th-century motets to movements from Korean Sungji Hong’s 2002 “Missa Lumen de Lumine.”
  

• July 12, Pärnu Kontserdimaja. “Golden Voices from Russia.” Pärnu City Orchestra. Conductors from Neeme Järvi’s Summer Academy. Five young Muscovites entertained royally with a generous selection of opera favorites, including La calunnia (“Barber of Seville”) with dashing bass Pjotr Novikov and Nessun dorma (“Turandot”) with tenor Konstantin Tolstobrov. Opulent-voiced mezzo Margarita Nekrassova weighed in with Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix (“Samson et Dalila”), the Habanera from “Carmen” and Stride la vampa (“Il Trovatore).” Soprano Anna Dolgova and baritone Vadim Sudarikov were easy on the eyes and ears in Nedda and Silvio’s duet from “Pagliacci.” The conductors acquitted themselves well, Neeme Järvi took a bow as teacher of the flock, then delighted the audience with a hammed-up performance of Rossini’s “La gazza ladra” Overture.

  Stars of Moscow Opera and students of Neeme Järvi's Summer Academy after a concert at Pärnu Concert Hall (Järvi center in white jacket)

• July 15, Memorial Church of the Estonian Soldiers, Tori. Bromley Youth Chamber Orchestra. Conductor Jonathan Josephs. Violinist Anna Harpham. Cellist Alice Purton. The Oistrakh Festival provided free bus transportation to this moving memorial just north of Pärnu, where the Estonian flag and a sculpture of St. George slaying the dragon keep watch over the church and nearby cemetery.

  Memorial Church of the Estonian Soldiers, near Pärnu

  
  The precocious youth orchestra from England performed Mozart, Elgar, Tippet and Villa-Lobos. Violinist Anna Harpham and cellist Alice Purton shone in Pärt’s “Fratres” and “The Protecting Veil” from John Tavener’s work of the same name. 

• July 16. Pärnu Town Hall. “The Living Classics.” “Lighten up” was the message of this morning concert by a popular local ensemble of mandolin, flute,trombone, accordion and piano (they sing, too).

  "The Living Classics" performing at Pärnu Town Hall

  Heard were witty arrangements of Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, a song by Estonian pop legend Raimond Valgre (a Pärnu local) and Va pensiero from “Nabucco” which they turned into a sing-along by passing out the lyrics to the audience. Piece de resistance was the Andante from Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony, where trombonist Ants Nuut lit a firecracker under a tiny cannon and demonstrated his best goose steps. 

• July 16, Jõhvi Concert Hall. St. Petersburg Festival Chamber Orchestra. Conductor Neeme Järvi. Oboist Kalev Kuljus. Pianist Antti Siirala. Järvi led the crack St. Petersburg Festival Chamber Orchestra in Lutoslawski’s “Funeral Music” and the most searing performance of any Shostakovich in my memory, the Chamber Symphony Op.110a, an arrangement of his String Quartet No. 8 for string orchestra and timpani by Russian conductor Abram Stassevich. Kuljus performed Mozart’s Oboe Concerto, K.314, with incredible nimbleness and tonal beauty. One was tempted to use “perfection” to describe Siirala’s patrician reading of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major.
  

• July 18, Pärnu Concert Hall. Same artists as July 16, plus flutist Sharon Bezaly and harpist Katherine Gima. Originally all Mozart, including the oboe and piano concertos heard in Jõhvi and the Concerto for Flute and Harp with Bezaly and Gima, the program was expanded to include the Shostakovich Chamber Symphony. The concertos were remarkable not only for their individual performances but as models of soloist/conductor collaboration, with Järvi standing on the floor next to the players and exchanging signals virtually shoulder to shoulder.

  Neeme Järvi conducting encore at final concert of 2006 David Oistrakh Festival, Pärnu Concert Hall

   Next year’s Oistrakh Festival – July, 2007, with exact dates to be announced, will celebrate Neeme Järvi’s 70th birthday. Another special festival is planned
for 2008, the centenary of David Oistrakh’s birth. The hope is, said Kaasik, to contact all of Oistrakh’s living students and invite them to Pärnu for the event.
 
(first published in American Record Guide, Nov.-Dec., 2006)