The Baltic states
have remarkable choral traditions and are home to many excellent
contemporary choirs. In Estonia, for example, out of a population
of under one and a half million people, some thirty thousand people
sing in approximately one thousand choirs. Tallinn hosts an All-Estonian
Song Celebration every five years, in which as many as twenty-four
thousand singers take part. Many readers will certainly have heard
- and surely admired – recordings by choirs such as the Estonian
Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Estonian National Male Choir.
Here is a CD by another top-class Estonian vocal ensemble, Heinavanker.
Heinavanker was established in 1988. Since then the group – all
of whose singers are quite young, to judge by the photographs
in the CD booklet – have toured and performed in France, Germany,
Scandinavia, Russia, U.S.A. and elsewhere. They take their name
– which means ‘Haywain’ – from the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch,
generally known as ‘The Haywain’, now in the Prado in Madrid.
This recital was recorded
in concert in Maulbronn Monastery, the Cistercian abbey in Germany,
which is generally regarded as one of the best-preserved
mediaeval abbeys north of the Alps. The recorded sound is good and there are few extraneous
noises. Heinavanker sing a programme made up of pieces by Ockeghem
and of Estonian sacred folk-songs with the addition of one Estonian
pre-Christian runic song and one example of Gregorian chant. Switching
backwards and forwards between the refinements of Ockeghem and
the simpler - but beautiful - music of the Estonian folk tradition
isn’t an unqualified success. In any case, it isn’t really in
the performances of Ockeghem that Heinavanker are heard at their
very best. Those primarily looking for recordings of Ockeghem
will presumably prefer to invest in CDs devoted entirely to his
remarkable work, such as the series by The Clerks’ group on ASV.
This present CD can largely be recommended for its presentation
of materials from the considerable tradition of Estonian sacred
folk-song. Unfortunately, the CD booklet tells one disappointingly
little about the music – and there are no texts or translations.
I have no specialist knowledge of the field; my understanding
is that these songs generally set texts from the Lutheran Hymnal
and that many of the melodies derive from the same source but
have been transformed and decorated in the processes of transmission
and unwritten traditions of performance. Even to a largely innocent
ear there is much to admire and relish here, but appreciation
of the music would surely have been much enhanced by the provision
of some details as to its historical provenance - to be fair the
geographical origins of some of the songs are given - and some
idea of the contents of the texts. The six voices of Heinavanker
are assured, full of vitality and blend very attractively. In
the atmospheric acoustic of the abbey church at Maulbronn the
results have a haunting and moving quality.
The one folk-song
of which the booklet provides some real details is that which
gives the CD its title – “Loomiselaul”. This is a pre-Christian
text, one of the so-called runic songs. Estonia was Christianised
only in the thirteenth century and most of the runic songs
certainly belong to a period several centuries earlier. Their
influence is evident in works by a number of modern Estonian
composers, such as the Eesti kalendrilaulund
[Estonian Calendar Songs] (1967) by Veljo Tormis. On
the present CD Heinavanker perform a song which relates an
ancient creation myth: “It is about a bird that makes a nesting
place in a paddock, lays eggs and hatches offspring. One of
the baby birds becomes the sun, the second the moon, the third
a star, and the fourth a rainbow”. With its ‘primitive’ harmonies
and its repetitive interplay between the soloist and the ensemble,
this is a striking piece – the highlight of a worthwhile disc
which might have been better still.
Glyn Pursglove
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Heinavanker: Eve Kopli (soprano); Kadri Hunt (alto); Margo Kölar (tenor);
Anto Önnis (tenor); Taniel Kirikal (baritone); Vambola Krigul (bass)
