Music of Estonia
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The recorded history of music in Estonia dates back as far as the 12th century.
History
The earliest mentioning of Estonian singing and dancing dates back to Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum (c. 1179).[1] Saxo speaks of Estonian warriors who sang at night while waiting for an epic battle.
The Estonian folk music tradition is broadly divided into 2 periods. The older
Folk music
Estonian
Traditional wind instruments derived from those used by shepherds, such as the karjapasun and vilepill, were once widespread, but are now more rarely played. Other instruments, including the fiddle, zither, concertina and accordion are used to play polka or other dance music. The kannel is a native instrument that is probably even more popular among the Estonian diaspora in North America than in its homeland, where well-known kannel musicians include Igor Tõnurist and Tuule Kann.
A notable example of an Estonian folk song is called "The herring lived on dry land", or simply "The herring song". According to its lyrics, in the ancient times the herring used to have legs and live on dry land. It used to destroy vermin, like rats and it was kept like a cat. One time a two masted sailing ship was transporting a large load of salt. Back then salt was expensive. Some unit of it called saam cost 100 of something in gold. There was a herring aboard the ship. The specific herring liked to eat salt, so it started to tunnel its way around the salt sacks. Eventually it accidentally chewed its way through the ships wooden hull, causing it to sink. This angered Neptune (the god of sea), who said to the herring: "Hey herring, because you chewed a hole into the ship and sunk the new ship, you will now have to live in seawater as punishment." The salt from the ship was released into the sea, resulting in the seas now having a salt composition.[2][3][4][5][6]
National awakening
After the Estonian national awakening the first professional Estonian musicians emerged. The most significant were Rudolf Tobias (1873–1918) and Artur Kapp (1878–1952). Other composers followed, such as Mart Saar (1882–1963), Artur Lemba (1885–1963), Heino Eller (1887–1970) and Cyrillus Kreek (1889–1962).
20th century
In the 1960s, the
In the 1950s, Estonian baritone Georg Ots rose to worldwide prominence as an opera singer.
Estonia also produced a number of classical composers of high repute during the twentieth century, including: Miina Härma (1864–1941), Rudolf Tobias (1873–1918), Heino Eller (1887–1970), Artur Kapp (1878–1952), Artur Lemba (1885–1963), Mart Saar (1882–1963), Lepo Sumera (1950–2000), Eduard Tubin (1905–1982), Veljo Tormis (1930–2017) and the living composers mentioned below.
Today
There are several yearly
These celebrations of traditional life have inspired multiple later composers who modernized traditional music, including Olev Muska and Coralie Joyce, Kirile Loo,
The indie folk rock band
Contemporary artists include Jüri Pootsmann, Tanel Padar and Ott Lepland. Today, many music festivals are held, such as Eesti Laul.
-
Ewert and the Two Dragons
See also
- Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest
- Estonian Song Festival
- List of Estonian composers
- List of Estonian choirs
- Estonian rock
- Viljandi Folk Music Festival
References
- ISBN 0-333-23111-2
- ^ laulud.ee (songs.ee) mentions that there's multiple slight variations available for the wording of the herring song, but the most commonly known version became famous in 1969, when it was featured in a cartoon.
- ^ "The song fragment "when the herring lived on dry land" was used in 2011 as the name of some culture event at a school in Valjala" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-10-29. Retrieved 2014-10-14.
- ^ The "Korp! Sakala" academic fraternal organization has it in a list of songs titled only "Heeringas" (Herring).
- ^ The publishing house "Kentaur" (Centaur) keeps the song in the same list as the national anthem and other famous (in Estonia) 19th-century songs.
- ^ The Tallinn University keeps it on a list mostly consisting of old and culturally relevant songs.
- Cronshaw, Andrew. "Singing Revolutions". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 16–24. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
External links
- (in French) Audio clips: Traditional music of Estonia. Musée d'ethnographie de Genève. Accessed November 25, 2010.
- Music of Estonia at Curlie
- Estmusic.com Overview of Estonian music
- Estonianmetal.com Overview of Estonian metal bands, releases, news and other events Archived 2020-04-29 at the Wayback Machine