Tüür Returns to Cincinnati for U.S. Premiere
Mary Ellyn Hutton
Posted: Sep 23, 2009 - 6:08:15 PM in
news_2009
Erkki-Sven Tüür (photo by P. Vähi)
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Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür returns to Cincinnati for the U.S. premiere of his Symphony No. 7, "Pietas," with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati May Festival Chorus led by CSO music director Paavo Järvi, Sept. 25-27 at Music Hall. This story, first published in The Cincinnati Post March 27, 2003, explores the background and career of the composer.
When composer Erkki-Sven Tüür was growing up in
Estonia, he was like a bird in a cage. He could sing his own songs – as
he did with his popular rock group In Spe ("In Hope") – but he could
not fly off and enjoy the music of others.
Estonia was occupied by
the Soviet Union then. Travel outside the country was restricted, and
Western contemporary music was not performed. The only way to hear it
was through recordings sent by friends or relatives in the West, or by
radio or TV from neighboring Finland.
"I couldn’t even visit my sister in Finland," said Tüür. "It was
only after some years of Gorbachev’s perestroika that things started to
change."
Tüür’s "Exodus" will be performed by Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati
Symphony at 8 p.m. March 28 and 29 at Music Hall. Tüür will attend the
repeat March 31 in New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Erkki-Sven Tüür with Paavo Järvi, Tallinn, June 2007
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Järvi and Tüür were friends – and nearly musical colleagues – before Järvi emigrated from Estonia in 1980.
Tüür’s first trip outside the Soviet Union was to Finland in 1988. He quickly made up for lost time.
"I thought this is maybe my first and last chance (he was 29).
Things may change again. I was very interested in Western music, so I
spent day after day in the Finnish music information center just
listening to music and looking at the scores."
He also slipped across the border.
"I went illegally, of course, because I didn’t have a visa, but they
didn’t control the visa on the border of Sweden and Finland. I visited
Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, all illegally. In every place, I visited
the local music information centers, took scores, copies, cassettes."
Things changed "quite radically" after that, he said. A year later
he was in the U.S. as part of a cultural exchange between Soviet and
American composers. Commissions followed, and in 1995 his Requiem won
first prize at the International Rostrum of Composers Competition in
Paris. Today his music is performed all over the world. In December,
famed percussionist Evelyn Glennie premiered his "Magma" (Symphony No.
4) with the Royal Flanders Philharmonic in Antwerp and Rotterdam.
Tüür came to Cincinnati in November, 2001 for the U.S. premiere of
his Violin Concerto performed by violinist Isabelle van Keulen with
Järvi and the CSO. (He also treated a few post-concert revelers,
including Järvi, to a bit of his In Spe vocalizing at The Blue Wisp
Club downtown.) Järvi will introduce his "Searching for Roots" to CSO
audiences in October.
Tüür’s works utilize a broad spectrum of compositional techniques.
He has assembled what he calls a "metalanguage" of 20th-century devices
to try to reconcile the disparate trends in contemporary music.
"The first time I was in a real new music festival I was so
surprised at the complexity of Central European modernism. I asked
myself why do they avoid the repetitive, minimalist aspects? Why are
they afraid of a simple triad? I was asking the same things when I
listened to (American minimalist) Philip Glass, where some other
qualities were lacking for me. I decided, OK, it should be possible to
combine both camps into one piece - not to do it mish mash, but to
structurally combine them so that the logic can be perceived."
Structure is key to his compositional method, which he calls "architectonics."
"Before I start writing musical elements – rhythmic patterns,
intervallic rows, scales, melodic patterns – I have a kind of abstract
visual image or architectural processes in mind. Afterwards, I try to
build them with purely musical elements." Rather than mere
juxtaposition, Tüür aims for "continuous transformation" from one to
another.
Tüür, 43, has a perfect spot to evolve his ideas. He has a summer
home on Hiiumaa, an idyllic island in the Baltic Sea just off the coast
of Estonia. He takes walks in the forest and on the seashore, listening
to his inner voice. "I can spend days there without meeting anybody,
just thinking over and over again about my ideas for the piece I’m
starting to write. Afterwards, when the work is in progress, I can go
to different places, but to catch the ideas, it is very essential to be
in the silent situation."
Tüür winters in Tallinn, the Estonian capital. His wife Anne (a
keyboardist in In Spe) is a pianist. They have a son, 22, who studies
electronic music at the Estonian Academy, and a daughter, 23, a
theology student at the University of Tartu.
A native of Kärdla on Hiiumaa, Tüür grew up surrounded by classical
music. His father, a Free Baptist minister, had a large record
collection. "I can remember ‘conducting’ Haydn symphonies as a child
and enjoying it enormously," At nine, he began to improvise on the
piano. "My father very much wished me to go to the children’s music
school, but I was too lazy. Unfortunately, he didn’t push me."
Realizing he was destined for music, he enrolled in 1974 at Tallinn
Music School (a secondary school for music studies). It was there he
met Järvi.
Tüür founded In Spe in 1979, performing as composer, keyboard
player, flutist and singer. The band "rang the bell for local people,"
he said. "We had a lot of audience and very warm - even hot – feedback"
(their 1983 LP "In Spe" was reissued on CD in 1999).
Cover of Tüür's early rock album "In Spe"
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But for his family’s emigration, Järvi might have been a rock star,
too. "I asked him to join the band," said Tüür. "He accepted to play
xylophone and vibes. We had serious plans. The sad point is that he
left before we realized it."
Like his mentor Lepo Sumera – whose Sixth Symphony Järvi performed
with the CSO last fall - Tüür has a keen ear for sonority. This can be
heard in "Exodus," a 17-minute, percussion-filled work dedicated to
Järvi.
"It starts very powerfully, filling the lowest register of the
orchestra, very dark, and step by step developing towards the highest
registers. It continues with a rhythmic motus (motion) that meets
barriers made by huge brass chord complexes, and then runs like waves
over them towards a real explosion. It sounds like a huge rock band."
The second part is "more atmospheric, like smoke, then at the very end it just vanishes."
Although it has no extra-musical meaning, "Exodus" could be read as
"a story about the transformation of character. A human trying to get
free from the gravitas of something, or everlastingly looking for a
better world."