David Oistrahhi Festival, 12. – 25. juuli, 2009, Pärnu David Oistrakh ...

Helmut Rosenvald is an Estonian composer and violonist
who celebrated his 80th jubilee this winter. His works, striving
for classical ideals and never stopping on the halfway, can
be traced back to such 19th and 20th century symphonists
as Sibelius, Shostakovich, and Tubin. Another composer that
Rosenvald considers influential for himself is Messiaen; of
his teachers and minds he mentions in the first place Heimar
Ilves.
In 1942–1947 Rosenvald studied violin with Rudolf Palm at
the Tallinn Conservatory and continued with the studies of
composition with Villem Kapp, graduating in 1963. Besides
composing, Helmut Rosenvald has played violin for nearly
30 years (1961–1989) in the Estonian National Symphony
Orchestra.
One can detect two conspicuous directions in Rosenvald’s
music: first, a predilection for dodecaphony and harmonies
based on the fourths in the 1960s and 1970s, and second, a
noticeable simplification of the general texture and harmony
in the 1980s.
The way Rosenvald organises his musical material resembles
the game of chess in which one move leads to another and
the final solutions can be foreseen already in the beginning
of the game. In his symphonic music Rosenvald tends to see
the orchestra as a super-instrument, preferring no instrument
group to any other and using orchestrations that are full of
fantasy and yet carefully planned: a fact that is probably due to
the composer’s long experience as an insider of an orchestra.
The most significant among his works are his pieces for
orchestra and strings: 2 concertos for violin, nine symphonies,
and several pieces for orchestra - Sinfonia breve and the
Simple Symphony, the sinfoniettas, the Classical Symphony
for string orchestra and timpani, chamber symphonies, six
string quartets, and chamber works for violin and cello.
At the Oistrakh Festival this year, Rosenvald’s chamber
concerto for cello and strings will be performed in public for
the first time. Written in 1970, it has yet not been brought out
in concerts, only a recording for Estonian Radio, with Tallinn
Chamber Orchestra, Neeme Järvi and soloist cello Ivo Juul, has
been made before. This year the concerto has been thoroughly
revised by Allar Kaasik and with him as the soloist it will be in
public premiere for the first time.
Ia Remmel / Gerly Kättmann