简介：
Without Pärnu, the Estonian Festival Orchestra and this – our fi rst album together – would not
exist.
Pärnu is a special place that embodies the history and spirit of the orchestra, my own family
and Estonia as a whole. It is a quiet seaside resort on the Baltic coast, south of Tallinn, where
all the Järvi family gathered for two months every summer. With its large and sheltered sandy
bay, endless parks and surrounding birch forests, Pärnu has always been a favourite holiday
destination and, during occupation, it was also the summer home of many Soviet artists including
Dmitri Shostakovich and David Oistrakh who visited for the nearest thing to western tolerance
and understanding in the Soviet Union. A holiday any closer to the West was not possible for any
of us.
It was here in 1973 that I met Shostakovich together with my father when I was ten years old,
a moment captured on camera and which now sits proudly in the family photo album. Behind
the camera was Gustav Ernesaks, the Estonian choral conductor and composer whose song, Mu
isamaa on minu arm, became an unoffi cial national anthem for all Estonians during the Soviet
occupation.
In 1980 we left for the States and for years to come, memories of childhood holidays in Pärnu
became increasingly distant and nostalgic. Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
renewed Independence of Estonia were we eventually allowed to return home and, following
my father’s initiative in creating a conducting Masterclass Academy in Pärnu, we decided to
expand the venture into a summer festival, celebrating the orchestra at its heart. In July 2011 the
Pärnu Music Festival came into life and so did the Estonian Festival Orchestra, bringing together
young Estonian players and top-league musicians from orchestras around the world, – musicalcolleagues with whom I have had the pleasure to work with on numerous occasions over the
years. It was immediately clear that another family had been born with a hunger and energy for
performing together which is a rare joy to fi nd nowadays.
An important component in creating the orchestra was to “match-make” the players. If you
are a young player in Estonia, it doesn’t matter how good you are, it’s not often easy to make
contact with a top player in the west. Now we can give these young musicians the advantage
to play with elite players from abroad and get to know them as new friends. This spirit is what
drives the orchestra and it is a delight each summer to see how those relationships have grown
naturally, creating a melting pot of national and international talent where nationality is happily
and importantly no boundary.
The week of the festival is intense and everyone gives their utmost in a schedule packed tight
with rehearsals, master-classes and concerts, following which we gather together in what is now
traditionally known as the “real festival headquarters” – the Passion Café, where friendships are
forged and new plans for the future are hatched. It is a remarkable coincidence, and one which
is never lost on me, that in the very same building where the Passion Café now stands there used
to be a printing house where the manifesto for the Estonian Declaration of Independence was
fi rst printed in 1918.
It is often said that there is something in the Estonian air that is a mixture of Scandinavian,
German and Russian infl uences and, even though we have our own very strong national identity,
it is true that we also have a natural feeling for neighbouring cultures as a result of our historical
and geographical position. So the idea for the Estonian Festival Orchestra is to explore music
by composers from across the Baltic region, which naturally includes championing Estonia’s
own composers and music from the Nordic countries as well as music from Poland, Russia and
Germany, countries with which our history is strongly interlinked.
For our fi rst recording I have chosen the music of Shostakovich, not only because he is one of the
giants of 20th century music but also because of his connection to Pärnu where he both stayed and composed. Symphony No.6 is a masterpiece but it also differs from all of Shostakovich’s
other symphonies because it has an air of peculiar lightness. As the composer himself said “I
wanted to convey in it the moods of spring, joy and youth.” Despite that lightness the subtexts
are grim and after the fi rst casual listen one can sense the composer’s struggle with the terror
of living in the Soviet reality.
The “Sinfonietta” is a 1961 arrangement for string orchestra and timpani of Shostakovich’s String
Quartet No.8 compiled by the composer’s trusted friend, Abram Stasevich, and orchestrated
with the composer’s personal blessing. Premiered one year previously, the Quartet is a musical
autobiography describing Shostakovich’s life to that point, including citations of pieces that he
had previously written and his own musical leitmotif – DSCH. It is a profound work dedicated “In
memory of the victims of fascism and war” and which, when performed by the Borodin Quartet
at his home in Moscow, left the composer in tears.
Performing and recording these works in Pärnu with a generation of musicians who can now
enjoy both peace and freedom of movement across Europe’s borders makes these works feel
even more poignant. As the Estonian Declaration of Independence states:
“You stand on the threshold of a hopeful future in which you shall be free and independent in
determining and directing your destiny! Begin building a home of your own, ruled by law and
order, in order to be a worthy member within the family of civilized nations!”
曲目：
SYMPHONY NO.6 IN B MINOR, OP.54
1. I. LARGO 18’23
2. II. ALLEGRO 6’11
3. III. PRESTO 6’37
SINFONIETTA (QUARTET NO.8), OP.110(B)
Arranged for String Orchestra and Timpani by Abram Stasevich
4. I. LARGO 6’05
5. II. ALLEGRO MOLTO 2’57
6. III. ALLEGRO 4’49
7. IV. LARGO 6’05
8. V. LARGO 5’04 试听：
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发表于 2020-2-8 10:10:24
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