Estonian Performance of Estonian Composer

This past Friday ECM New Series released its latest album of works by the Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür. I have not followed this composer assiduously. However, during my tenure with Examiner.com, I wrote about two ECM albums devoted to his work, which were released in the last decade. The earlier of these, released at the beginning of 2011, was the album Strata, coupling his sixth symphony (also entitled “Strata”) with a concerto for clarinet, violin, and orchestra given the title “Noēsis.” My second encounter took place in the spring of 2014 with the release of another concerto-symphony album. This one began with the piano concerto completed in 2006 followed by the seventh symphony from 2009. Once again, the symphony was given a title, this time “Pietas.”

Cover of the album being discussed, from its Amazon.com Web page

Also once again, the new album was released with a title, Aeris. This is also the title given to the most recent work on the album, the composer’s tenth symphony, completed in 2021. This work was distinguished for having been composed for a quartet of horns and full orchestra. It was preceded and followed by two earlier works for full orchestra. The first was the more recent, “Phantasma,” composed in 2018; and the album concluded with “De Profundis,” composed in 2013. The horns were performed by the quartet German Hornsound, and Olari Elys (to whom “De Profundis” was dedicated) conducted the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. Sadly, I have not had an opportunity to listen to this composer’s music in performance, my most recent missed chance having been in February of last year, when violinist Leila Josefowicz played his “Conversio” for her San Francisco Performances recital.

Those that enjoyed either or both of the past releases are likely to feel the same about the new one. For my part, however, while I can continue to appreciate the composer’s craft, I have to confess that in any “blind test” experiment, I doubt that I would be able to distinguish one symphony from another! That said, I would be more than happy to listen to any of them in a performance setting (which would probably reveal even more subtleties in the composer’s craft than a recording could); but the Web site for the San Francisco Symphony seems to have no record of his music being performed!