Estonia is a country whose history is practically defined by its power of resilience. It has withstood numerous devastating battles on its soil, and come through lengthy periods of forced occupation, all of which have profoundly disrupted the population’s ability to express, and even comprehend, their sense of national identity. The last period of occupation, which only ended in 1991, was especially notable for the way Estonians – together with their Baltic companions in Latvia and Lithuania – brought about their own liberation in no small part due to the ‘Singing Revolution’, a series of large-scale song demonstrations and protests that began in the late 1980s. This revolution testified not only to the power of music to overturn an oppressive regime and bring about lasting social change, but also, perhaps more, to the profound relationship the people of Estonia have with song.

One of the major figures who helped to ignite – or, perhaps more accurately, re-ignite – this relationship was the composer Veljo Tormis, who died in 2017. A little over half a century ago, in 1972, Tormis published ‘Folksong and Us’, an essay that would have a major impact on Estonia’s music-making outlook and practice. For Tormis, it was a tragedy that the country had forgotten what he described as “our people’s oldest, unique, their most highly evolved creation throughout the centuries, an expression of the people’s creative genius.”

Tormis was referring to regilaul, Estonia’s native folksong, and in this seminal text he set out not merely to praise its virtues (though he did, passionately) but, more importantly, to place it centrally within what he hoped could be a national reassessment and reclamation of a vital part of the country’s cultural heritage. He was at pains to clarify that his advocacy for regilaul’s repositioning at the heart of Estonian singing life was not about “mere parochialism, nor fad”, nor “some sort of sentimental ‘Estonianism’”. The focus, he stressed, was on its more basic, social impact: “These traditions should simply bring people pleasure and joy, and deepen their communality.”

That same communal spirit is at the heart of the Veljo Tormis Virtual Centre, an internet site launched for Tormis’ 90th anniversary in 2020 following – highly appropriately – a crowdfunding campaign. The Centre’s Project Manager is Iti Teder, who describes the Centre as “not an institution or organisation. We are building a global community.” The original idea for the venture, she says, came from Tormis himself. “He’s the creative mind behind it. Veljo didn’t want statues or monuments, he wanted to have his creative heritage digitalised and globally accessible.” It’s been a laborious process, still ongoing, due to the fact that Tormis’ music is located in various institutions. “The Estonian Theatre and Music Museum, History Museum, National Library, we have been gathering all these materials back together and manually digitising everything.”

It’s clear that folksong was always important to Veljo Tormis. One of his earliest extant compositions is Süit Vigala rahvaviisidest (Suite on Vigala Folk Tunes), written in 1949 when the composer was still in his late teens. Teder sees this as stemming from two related outlooks. The first pertains to occupation, about which Teder is unequivocal, describing Tormis’ embracing of folk music as “a form of silent resistance” against Soviet oppression, essentially sowing the seeds of revival decades before a formal movement emerged. The second is more directly musical, even musicological, since Tormis – like Bartók and Kodály before him – was deeply interested not only in his immediate folk heritage but that of the related Finno-Ugric peoples, travelling around and making recordings to preserve their songs. “He recorded their music and we still have those tapes. He really stood up for marginalised nationalities. He was a people person.”

Tormis saw the nature and role of regilaul as something functional – “a chance to socialise and an opportunity to enjoy a communal project” – rather than an artistic, personal one, distancing it from conventional notions of classical music. This led him to rethink his own notions of originality (which were, in any case, far from avant-garde) and to make regilaul the focus of his work. “This is my duty,” he stated plainly, “I consider it to be of greater importance for society at present than my own creation.”

Describing himself as “more a mediator than a composer”, for the rest of his life, Tormis’ output was directly guided and shaped by the source music, seeking to amplify its intrinsic expression rather than attempting to use it “as thematic material in the service of ‘real’ art”. This usually took the form of pieces such as Raua needmine (Curse Upon Iron) (1972), focusing exclusively on regilaul, and, most ambitious of all, the extended cycle Unustatud rahvad (Forgotten Peoples), a series of six smaller cycles featuring folk music of the Livonians, Votics, Azoreans, Ingrians, Vepsians and Karelians. Rather than arranging these songs in a conventional sense, Tormis structured them into large-scale ritualistic forms, using drones and restrained harmonies to heighten their hypnotic power while preserving their fundamental essence.

In his essay, Tormis made the case that a folksong revival could be greatly reinforced by being incorporated into Estonia’s Song Festival tradition. Today one of the largest-scale choral festivals in the world, they had begun as far back as 1869, being held every five years. In 1934, a parallel tradition of Dance Festivals was established, which eventually became part of the event. Tormis argued that, at the festival, “people always feel an urge to participate. They are not able to join in and sing the standard repertoire. This would be an opportunity when, in addition to clapping and tapping along, all the people could also sing. It really would be everyone’s communal song festival.”

Teder points out (as Tormis also did) that “the song festival was inspired by German culture [the Baltic Germans of the 19th-century Estophile period], and Veljo Tormis came out with a different idea: what is our mother tongue?” Tormis sharply contrasted the unique characteristics of regilaul with European artistic norms. In particular he sought to distance it from conventions of melody and even emotion, describing its “absolute dispassion in performance – the independence of the manner of singing from the material being sung.”

Acknowledging that this manner might seem odd to many, Tormis highlighted its heightened mode of recitation, likening it to something magical. “We must remember that there still exists a clear connection between ancient folk song and witchcraft, shamanism, and casting a spell.” Tormis lamented that “at our present stage of development we regret that in the past the national culture was constructed primarily on borrowed foundations.” But like Tormis, Iti Teder is emphatic in her belief that “regilaul is the mother tongue of the Estonian people. That’s why a lot of people resonate with it.”

To expand that resonance, a symposium called Leading Voices will coincide with this year’s Estonian Song Festival. Embracing people of all ages and abilities, its main theme is to explore collective singing from both social and artistic perspectives. This will be done through a series of workshops, masterclasses, lessons and talks, culminating in several concert performances. The scale of the symposium is a testament not only to the importance of choral music within Estonia, but also of Estonia’s global leadership in fostering and developing collective song.

Additionally, 2025 is the 95th anniversary of Tormis’ birth, and to mark the occasion the Virtual Centre has launched a special competition, Tormis 95. A global contest, the primary aim is to encourage both individuals and choirs from around the world to submit videos of themselves performing Tormis’ music. But the competition extends to other art forms, including painting, sculpture, poetry and spoken word performances, anything that pays tribute to Tormis’ legacy. This will culminate in a video compilation created by the Virtual Centre that will be screened at a ‘Grand Tribute’ at Tormis’ birthplace, Kõrveaia, on 7th August. It’s another example of the Virtual Centre continuing Veljo Tormis’ legacy, advocating for all people to contribute to the communal activity. “We welcome everyone and everything,” Teder explains. “The idea is to offer a stage to everybody who wants to say something.”

This year’s Song Festival will be taking place at a tense time in global politics, with Russia, Estonia’s former occupier, now seeking to occupy Ukraine. One suspects that communal singing will be especially poignant and heartfelt, and that, more than ever, the country’s strong sense of national identity and cultural pride will ring out through the massed voices. Visibly moved, Teder sums up this sentiment from her own past experiences at the festival. “It’s this Estonian feeling of identity and unity. The songs are so beautiful, and we all know them. It’s the history – everything that hurts you, the fact that we’re not as united these days, politically or whatever, there’s a lot of things going on in the world – but this is one thing that still unites us.”

Perhaps Estonia’s and Veljo Tormis’ greatest legacy is simply this: that a nation can be oppressed, its people silenced, but the one thing that can never truly die is what lies at the heart of both – their song.

🔹 The Tormis 95 Singing Contest is open until 7th May, with final performance on 7th August, in Kõrveaia.
🔹 The 28th Estonian Song and Dance Celebration “Iseoma” runs from 3rd–6th July in Tallinn.
📝 This article was sponsored by the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency.

The article on Bachtrack is accessible using the following LINK.

Photo: Tõnu Tormis