Livonian Lament
Livonian Lament
Performer: Julgi Stalte
Estonian Philarmonic Chamber Choir, cond. Mikk Üleoja
Tape developed in: Akademie der Künste, Berlin
The livonian women and women of other finnish tribes used to rite laments thousands of years – if not often so at least at every important occasion. There’s not much we know about it today: when the researches arrived the people who had kept their culture of lamenting, there were some artistic, concert-like remains left. How the lament was sung – is beyond imaginable.
Livonians did not make even as far: there was not a single lament written down when the researches reached their coast in the 19th century. So I tried to recreate one in co-operation with Julgi Stalte, one of the very last who can claim Livonian as her mother tongue. We used ancient rudiments of livonian laments we believed to be found in two wedding songs, and one ancient Livonian melody, as well used to be sung at the weddings. Those three we again developed or, to be correct, re-back-developed futher.
I tried to recreate a 17th century Livonian lament, as authentic as possible. Not too slavic, yet not too strange for their Latvian neighbours. During the lament and it’s counterpoint with the fire integrates the German in: language of strangers, gaining focus, until Livonian girl fades and remains tacid.
2002-04 I enthusiastically studied the culture of lamenting and used laments in three works: there’s one authentic Tver-Carelian lament in “Luft-Wasser…” and Livonian Lament is kind of a musical summary of The Opposite Shore, where same lament exists in another context.
The Opposite Shore
Liivonian coast