This 2005 double-disc compilation of Estonian orchestral music, splendidly performed by Neeme Järvi and the Scottish National Orchestra, is a chronological survey that outlines the development of a national musical identity that only gradually became free of external influences. The Julius Caesar Overture (1896) by Rudolf Tobias, the Symphony in C sharp minor (1908) by Artur Lemba, and Heino Eller's Videvik (1917), Koit (1918), and Elegia (1931) show the slow but steady progression from slavish imitation of the Russian ...
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This 2005 double-disc compilation of Estonian orchestral music, splendidly performed by Neeme Järvi and the Scottish National Orchestra, is a chronological survey that outlines the development of a national musical identity that only gradually became free of external influences. The Julius Caesar Overture (1896) by Rudolf Tobias, the Symphony in C sharp minor (1908) by Artur Lemba, and Heino Eller's Videvik (1917), Koit (1918), and Elegia (1931) show the slow but steady progression from slavish imitation of the Russian Romantics -- particularly Tchaikovsky -- to a fairly cosmopolitan modernism, attuned to French music of the fin de siècle and Stravinsky's neo-Classicism. The Symphony No. 1 (1944) by Kaljo Raid, Eller's Five Pieces (1953), Veljo Tormis' Overture No. 2 (1959), and Arvo Pärt's Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten (1977) show the rapid assimilation of twentieth century idioms and influences, but with them a growing sense of cultural and artistic independence, tied less to Soviet and...
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