Tubin

TUBIN

Eduard Tubin. Music for strings. Concertino for piano and orchestra. Concerto for flute and string orchestra. Produced by ERP for Warner Classics.

Flute Concerto, performed by Maarika Järvi,  movement II, fragm, 52 sec, mp3

The music by Eduard Tubin is extremely rich in variation, being among the most outstanding achievement in Estonian music. Though Tubin became a renowned master already in Estonia, his specific style got its final finesse during the years of exile in Sweden. The most precious part of his work is the 10 symphonies but besides that he has composed instrumental concertos, stage and chamber music, choir and solo songs. Eduard Tubin died in Stockholm, 1982.
Tubin came first in contact with music in his father’s house in Naelavere where after the death of his elder brother Johannes in 1912 Eduard inherited a piccolo flute. Thus, while shepherding the family’s cows Tubin started learning to play the flute. Later he graduated from Tartu Higher Music School as composer under the supervision by Heino Eller.
Memories of the shepherd days and Estonian folk tunes that had inspired Tubin earlier kept attracting him also during his exile. Though flute for Tubin was closely connected to his memories of shepherd time, before 1970 he had not composed anything specifically for that instrument. On the commission by the Estonian flutist Samuel Saulus Tubin started composing a flute concerto of which only some drafts have been found. Only in 1979 the composer wrote a Sonata for flute and cello. The premiere performance of the Flute Sonata was held at the ESTO Festival in the Great Hall of Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm, 1980. In 1995 it was orchestrated by an American composer Charles Coleman. The Flute Sonata remained the last work by Tubin. Here the clarity and simplicity characteristic of the composer’s last creative period are expressed at their best. The Sonata consists of three parts with the main point of gravity at the end of the piece where the composer’s mental enlightenment can be viewed through the retrospect on the passage of his life.

Other recordings of Tubin by ERP: 100 Years Of Estonian Symphony, Kratt, Musica triste, Estonian Preludes, Eduard Tubin and His Time, Northern Lights Sonata, Works for Violin and Piano Vol 1, Works for Violin and Piano Vol 2