Golden Anniversary Choral Spectacular - The Grant Park Music ...

soñemos sueños activos de río we must dream the dreams of a river
buscando su cauce, seeking its course,
sueños de sol soñando sus mundos, of the sun dreaming its worlds,
hay que soñar en voz alta, we must dream aloud,
hay que cantar hasta que el canto eche, we must sing till the song puts forth roots,
raíces, tronco, ramas, pájaros, astros, trunk, branches, birds, stars,
hay que desenterrar la palabra perdida, we must find the lost word,
recordar lo que dicen la sangre, and remember what the blood,
la marea, la tierra y el cuerpo, the tides, the earth, and the body say,
volver al punto de partida … and return to the point of departure …
raua NEEdMINE (“curSE upoN IroN”)
(1972; rEViSED 1991)
Veljo Tormis (born in 1930)
Veljo Tormis was born on August 7, 1930 into a musical
family in Kuusalu, near the Estonian capital city of Tallinn, and
received his early music instruction from his father, the organist
and choir director at a local Lutheran church. Tormis began his
formal studies at the Tallinn Conservatory in 1943, but illness
and the exigencies of World War II interrupted his education. He
resumed his training at the Conservatory in 1949, studying organ and choral conducting
and beginning to compose, and won his first composition prize the following year for
Ringmängulaul (“Circle Game Song”) on a text by the historian and critic Lea Rummo,
who later became his wife. Tormis continued his studies at the Moscow Conservatory
from 1951 to 1956, where his teachers included Vissarion Shebalin and Yury Fortunatov;
Dmitri Shostakovich was chairman of the jury for his graduation examination. From 1956
to 1960, Tormis taught theory and composition at the Tallinn Conservatory, where the
gifted Arvo Pärt was among his students. He also served as a consultant to the Estonian
Composers’ Union between 1956 and 1969 and as the organization’s vice-president from
1974 to 1989. He announced his retirement from composition in 2000 on his seventieth
birthday, thereafter calling himself “Composer Emeritus” and placing a plaque to that
effect over the doorbell to his flat in Tallinn. Tormis’ many distinctions include the titles
of Estonian SSR Honored Worker in Arts, ESSR People’s Artist and USSR People’s Artist,
and winning the Soviet Estonia Prize, USSR State Prize, ESSR Annual Prize for Music,
Estonian State Cultural Award, Composition Prize of the Estonian Music Council and
the order of Friendship of Peoples; in 1998, he received the Estonian National Culture
Foundation Prize for his life’s work, and in 2009, he was granted the First Class order of
the National Coat of Arms.
Tormis wrote, “The most essential part of my work is choral music, the most essential
part of which, in turn, is connected with the ancient folk song of Estonians and other
Finnic peoples. My music can by no means be labelled as folk or world music. It is rather
an attempt to preserve the authenticity of the source material, making a compromise
with the forms and performing opportunities of modern music…. My best-known
compositions in the choral field are the incantation Raua Needmine (‘Curse Upon Iron’)
and the extended series Eesti Kalendrilaulud (‘Estonian Calendar Songs,’ 29 runic songs
about the peasant’s work throughout the course of the year) and Unustatud rahvad
(‘Forgotten Peoples,’ on motifs from Livonian, Votic, Izhorian, Ingrian Finnish, Vepsian
and Karelian folklore). All in all, I have written about sixty cycles or series, about forty
extended choral works and about eighty songs for a cappella choir. In other genres,
the overture No. 2 for orchestra, the opera Swan’s Flight (‘Luigelend’) and the cantataballet
Estonian Ballads (‘Eesti ballaadid’) have gained wide critical acclaim.
“The idea of Raua Needmine (‘Curse Upon Iron,’ 1972) was on my mind for years
A28 2012 Program Notes, Book 2
Friday, June 29 and Saturday, June 30, 2012