Estonia

As we are now well settled into tour routine – the unintelligible vocabulary to anyone who hasn’t seen this year’s Youtube sketch, and the nicknames that inevitably arise with eight people in the choir named Tom, well in place – here’s a look back at the lead up to the tour and what has happened so far.

Months of rehearsals and a phenomenal amount of effort on everyone’s part finally resulted in a highly rewarding Gala Concert in Southwark. It was great to see some old faces back in the substantial audience along with many of the regulars. As many of the pieces were are doing this tour are well known by some members of the choir but were brand new to the newer arrivals at the start of the year, one of the challenges in the lead up to Southwark was to make sure that no-one got left behind, which would have had a negative effect on the sound in Southwark and a lot more time would have to be spent on tour rehearsing pieces such as Britten’s “Rejoice in the Lamb” and Finzi’s “Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice”. However, these two presented little difficulty in Southwark, and even the punishing “The Twelve” by Walton was tamed.

Southwark was an excellent concert and one which set expectations for the approaching tour high. With the addition of a couple of pieces to the repertoire (old favourites, “Salvator Mundi” and “If ye Love Me” – Tallis, Ave Verum Corpus – Byrd and the 5 Spirituals from “Child of Our Time,” – Tippett) the Founders' Day service on the last day of term approached. This is always one of the most unnerving events in the calendar for the choir as the congregation is made up of friends. Ignoring the suggestion by one member of my form that we sing everything at triple speed so that everyone could go home early, the service went without a hitch, and the choir helped to produce an excellent finish to a very successful year of Tiffin music.

After the Founders' Day service came to an end, and we said goodbye to those members of the choir that would not be joining us on tour, we boarded the bus for Gatwick, realised there weren’t enough seats and waited for the minibus to arrive to take the remainder. After a short flight with “Estonian Air” awaited with thankfully unfounded apprehension, we got our first view of Tallinn, capital of Estonia. Having rescued Ed Tan’s camera and attempted – with varying degrees of success - not to stare at the group of middle-aged men wearing lederhosen at baggage claim, we met our tour guide, Lina, and were herded briskly to “Hotel Shnelli.” We were reasonably close to the centre of Tallinn, especially our concert venues, and had anyone wanted to take the overnight train to Moscow that would play Russian Opera at five o’clock in the morning when it arrived just below the windows of those fortunate enough to be on the right hand side, that would have been even more convenient.

The first day in Tallinn was spent mostly in the old town with guided tours of the centre of Tallinn including the town hall, parliament building, venue for the huge Estonian festival of song and main Russian Orthodox Church. Also during the course of the tour we got a good idea of the way the country’s turbulent recent history (including three occupations in one century) has affected it. It was almost surreal to see ornate churches, brightly coloured buildings and traditional architectural styles surrounded the with dull, square concrete blocks of the Soviet Union, built to house the many Russians resettled in Tallinn in exchange for the mass deportations of Estonians to Siberia.

In the first rehearsal of the tour, in the Matkamaja Hall, we began to learn to compensate for the various changes in acoustics, humidity and temperature we would be dealing with in the various venues during the tour. This would prove to be one of the main challenges over the next few days. After this, we headed across town for a buffet dinner and – the evening’s entertainment – “Toy Story 3” in the Solaris Kino. The film was surprisingly deep with some amusing characterisation, one character in particular bearing remarkable resemblance in mannerisms to various people in the choir of the hair-product persuasion.

Our first concert took place on the following day, in the Niguliste Museum. We had heard on many occasions that the Estonian people were very into choral music, but it wasn’t until now, when so many people showed up, the choir had to give away our off-stage seats to the audience that we really gauged how much. Our main challenge in this concert was communication with Peter Jaekel at the organ, which was at the other end of the museum concert hall, the distance producing tuning and timing issues, one eventually sorted with some careful listening, the other by, I quote, “Peter Jaekel’s mad skills”. It was very gratifying to have such a full house and especially at the first concert of tour. When combined with the great musicality and some excellent solos in the pieces, this seemed to bode extremely well for the rest of the tour.

The following day began with a rehearsal, followed by a church service in Kaarli Church. The service itself was an interesting insight into the religious system that has played a major part in Estonian culture and history; although not being able to speak any Estonian may have had some effect on the quality of the hymn singing on our part.

The journey to Rakvere Castle which followed was accompanied by Jack Bazalgette’s ukulele which has received various death threats throughout the course of the tour. After lunch in the castle, we split into two groups and were given an eventful – if somewhat surreal – tour of the castle, involving making and burning gunpowder, putting Matthew Edmunds in the stocks, using various torture devices to the point of mild discomfort on Adam Mirsky and Toby Hasler-Winter and a short trip to “hell”. We were also told a fair bit about the history of the castle: its various additions over the years; the three times it was occupied; its destruction – twice – each time by different sides to prevent it falling into enemy hands, and its eventual partial reconstruction. The main attraction for many of the trebles was yet to come however, as they spent the remainder of the afternoon staging mock fights with foam swords and riding a small and heavily overburdened wheeled wooden horse down a hill, whilst the rest of us sat around watching and pretending not to be amused.

Dinner regrettably marked the end of our stay in Tallinn, and after a last look round for the older members of the choir, we returned to the hotel and packed for Pärnu and eventually Riga. Upon arrival in Pärnu the following morning, we gave what was to be our final concert in Estonia (in the Eliisabet Church) before crossing the border to Latvia. Although in a smaller venue, once again we were gratifyingly greeted by a full house. The concert produced an excellent pianissimo sound, particularly in the unaccompanied pieces contrasted by a very powerful one in numbers such as Handel’s “Zadok the Priest.” Peter Jaekel – aided by Adam Mirsky, regrettably hors de combat – also wrestled with a particularly difficult organ to produce a fantastic conclusion to the evening in the form of “Rejoice in the Lamb”.
This marked the end of our time in Estonia. After dinner we boarded the bus and crossed the border to Latvia. If it produces a similar experience to what we have experienced so far, it’s shaping up to be a brilliant tour.

Peter Lidbetter (Year 11)