The
article in Grammophone, a guest blog by composer
Gabriel Jackson, tells us a bit about choral music in Latvia:
A nation of singers
Latvia is a country steeped in a wonderful choral tradition
As I write this I’m getting ready for a trip to Riga – my first in
over two years – for meetings and to catch up with old friends and
colleagues. Over the last decade I’ve been a regular visitor to this
bustling, compact, yet grand city on the edge of the Baltic, exploring
its vibrant and exciting cultural life, especially its music. Of
particular interest to me, naturally, is its contemporary music which is
thriving – there is more to Latvia than Pēteris Vasks, master though he
is – thanks to figures like Pēteris Plakidis, Uģis Prauliņš, Andris
Dzenitis, Ēriks Ešenvalds and Rihards Dubra that are still too little
known in Western Europe.
And then there is singing. In the UK we are justly proud of our
choral tradition (though some choirs seem to think you only have to be
British to be good) but are rather insular when it comes to
investigating the equally long-lived and distinguished choral cultures
of others. And singing is what Latvians do. I don’t know what
percentage of the population is in a choir but it must be pretty high;
it’s certainly taken very seriously and every Latvian I know can sing,
and does. The country has a huge repertory of folk songs, many of which
everybody knows. (Encore Pūt vējiņi in a concert and you will
hear audible sighs of recognition and pleasure from the audience.)
Recognised by UNESCO as a ‘masterpiece of the oral and intangible
heritage of humanity’, the five-yearly song festivals see thousands of
performers sing to audiences numbered in the hundreds of thousands in a
specially-built amphitheatre. During Jāņi, the summer solstice celebrations, Latvians head for the countryside, jump over bonfires, drink, and…sing – a lot!
In a country of 2.2 million people there are two full-time
professional chamber choirs, the State Choir ‘Latvija’ and the Latvian
Radio Choir. (The UK, by the way, has only one – the BBC Singers.) The
Riga Dom Cathedral Boys Choir (which has men in it too!) is one of the
great all-male choirs of the world. The youth choir Kamer… regularly
give performances of astonishing virtuosity and dedication. But it’s not
just the ubiquity of singing and the skill of its practitioners that’s
impressive, it’s the sheer sound of Latvian choirs that is so remarkable
and so different from our own: there is a particular purity and clarity
(much lighter-voiced tenors, for example) but also a plangency, a
richness and intensity that is totally compelling. Conductor Māris
Sirmais describes it as combining the best of the Germanic and Russian
traditions (both occupiers of Latvia…), but is it fanciful to suggest
that the pain of centuries of oppression and the struggle to maintain
some kind of national identity and dignity is also what gives the sound
of Latvian choirs a particular emotional authenticity and quiet
strength? (In 2010 the State Choir were rehearsing my piece A ship with unfurled sails,
a setting of words by the Estonian Doris Kareva; when I explained that
the poem was written in Soviet times and so the long-awaited ship
represented independence, the whole atmosphere of the performance
changed because, of course, they understood. It was unbearably moving.)
A few summers ago I was walking through Dom Square during the Riga
Festival and on a street corner I saw a group of lads in their late
teens doing what teenagers the world over do – smoking, drinking and
messing about. They were all in national costume – they’d obviously just
been performing – and were quite unselfconscious about standing around
wearing what many young people would find embarrassingly folkish and,
well, just plain naff. Sights like this, or that of a group of office
boys attending the opera after work whereas in London they’d be getting
drunk in a City wine bar, are telling instances of the way that singing
is at the heart of everyday life in Latvia in a way that we should only
envy. It must be hoped that as Latvia continues its re-integration into
the Europe to which it has always really belonged singing will remain
one of its central and defining preoccupations for its choirs are among
the great glories of the world.
I can’t wait to board that plane
Gabriel Jackson’s A ship with unfurled sails has just been released on Hyperion, recorded by the State Choir Latvija and conducted by Maris Sirmais. For details visit the Hyperion website.
2 comments:
Love it! I really hope to visit Riga someday. . .
I get to sing Ēriks Ešenvalds' Passion and Resurrection in April with the Oregon Repertory Singers. Ēriks is actually coming to work with us the week before the concert and I believe this will be his first trip to the US. I'm very excited!
Britta,
So nice to hear from you! That's great you're doing Ešenvalds' Passion and Resurrection with ORS!
I think Richard Nance is doing an Ešenvalds piece with Choir of the West that he wrote for them--very cool! I know they'll do it at ACDA.
Will you get to national ACDA sometime? A wonderful experience.
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