When the various members of the
Jaervi
conducting family turn to Estonian music, the results range from good to absolutely delightful, and there is an example of the latter on this 2023 release by
Paavo Jaervi
. It is the
titular work
, which opens the program and was Estonia's first ballet when it was premiered in 1944 and had six performances before the theater presenting it was destroyed. It is a somewhat helter-skelter work with a peasant setting and some bracing folkish music that resulted from the influence of
Zoltan Kodaly
; it was also recorded by
Neeme Jaervi
, so one may take the work as a family favorite. There is another work by
Tubin
on the program, the
Music for Strings
, from slightly later and reflecting the overwhelming influence
Bartok
had in post-World War II Eastern Europe. The
works are paired with more recent Polish works, and the notes stress the affinities between these two musical cultures that were temporarily smothered by Soviet cultural power.
Grazyna Bacewicz
's
Concerto for string orchestra
is an elegant neoclassic work, but the program ends on an extremely downbeat note with the
Musique funebre for string orchestra
of
Witold Lutoslawski
, a grim work that is no lofty oration in memory of
(it was written on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his death) but a cry of pain that brings to mind the grim slow movements of
Shostakovich
's later years. Perhaps its inclusion at the end is meant to suggest that in this part of the world, the Reaper is never far away. Whatever the case, it receives a fine emotional performance from
and the
Estonian Festival Orchestra
. This is an entirely distinctive collection of Eastern European pieces that most listeners from outside the region will not have heard, and it has a strongly personal flavor. ~ James Manheim