Estonia
Albums of the Year 2024: Mercury Rev - Born HorsesFriday, 20 December 2024
Born Horses remains as inscrutable as it was when it was issued in the summer. While it is about the search for enlightenment through journeying into inner space, much of what’s described – the album’s words are largely spoken – is allegorical,... Read more... |
Album: Ajukaja & Mart Avi - Death of MusicThursday, 12 December 2024
Death of Music was created in Estonia. Despite the English lyrics, directness is absent. Take the title track. “Drop the music” exhorts Mart Avi over its pulsing five minutes. “Fight the music” he declares. The word “execution” crops up. There is... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Arvo Pärt - Tabula RasaSunday, 13 October 2024
In 2022, Spritualized’s Jason Pierce described his musical goal as "trying to find somewhere between Arvo Pärt and The Stooges.” Amongst the most arresting and explicitly Pärt-styled results of this quest to link the minimalist composer with Iggy... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Haapsalu Early Music Festival 2024 - other-worldly instruments, perfect programmes and haunting venuesTuesday, 06 August 2024
The buildings, 13th-16th century, are earlier than the music (mostly Baroque). And what buildings. Non-Estonians like myself had heard that Haapsalu was a fine seaside town; but tourist publicity neglected the glory of the castle and cathedral, a... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2024 - youth, experience and old mastery on the highest levelThursday, 18 July 2024
"The world meets in Pärnu", slogan for the 14th festival in Estonia's summer seaside capital, has held good ever since Paavo Järvi gathered native musicians and key players from the international teams he inspires to form what's now the Estonian... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Tallinn Music Week - art-pop, accordions and a perfect techno hideawayThursday, 11 April 2024
Tallinn is a very civilised city. It’s enough to provoke intense jealousy on arrival from the land of potholes, two year waiting lists and seven pound pints to find that not only do they have pretty much all the infrastructure of their Nordic... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2023: Cécile McLorin Salvant - MélusineThursday, 21 December 2023
If Mélusine is encountered without knowing its background or themes it would still be remarkable. There is no need to know anything about what frames this journey through Chanson Française, electronica, jazz and show-tune sensibilities with lyrics... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the Pärnu Music Festival 2023 - small seaside town, biggest roster of top playersSaturday, 05 August 2023
Circumstances matter here. The annual visit to what remains my favourite music festival in the world was going to be kyboshed by the date fixed for a big hospital operation. But the Pärnu Music Festival worked overtime to get me rebooked to the... Read more... |
Douglas, Estonian NSO, Elts, Cadogan Hall review - perfect ebb and flow from conductor and pianistThursday, 25 May 2023
Until last night, I’d only heard the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO at home, “Riiklik” standing for “National”) live in unfamiliar contemporary epics, with Kristiina Poska and Anu Tali respectively conducting Lepo Sumera’s Fourth and... Read more... |
Estonian National Male Voice Choir, Üleoja, Kings Place review - full-throated Baltic choral musicTuesday, 23 May 2023
One of the singers smashes out a jittery pulse on a shaman drum and the 50-strong choir intone a chant, while at the front a tenor who looks like a doorman you wouldn’t mess with spits out what sounds like a threat from between gritted teeth. It is... Read more... |
Tallinn Music Week 2023 review - when music is unavoidably the language of freedomThursday, 18 May 2023
Estonia’s Mart Avi styles himself as “the twilight samurai of alternative pop”. He creates “nowhere-somewhere music, mapping uncharted territories between avant-pop and timeless grandeur”. The characterisations are issued via AVICORP, his internet... Read more... |
Jaan Kross: A Book of Falsehoods review - plague, power and deception in 16th century TallinnThursday, 05 January 2023
When the first volume of Estonian master Jaan Kross’s peerless historical trilogy first appeared in an English translation by Merike Lepasaar Beecher back in 2016, what leapt out at me about this fictionalised saga about the adventures of real-life... Read more... |
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