CCastleastle ofof Light:Light: A SnapshotSnapshot ofof LatvianLatvian ChoralChoral MMusicusic asas thethe NationNation TurnsTurns 100100 bbyy MarkMark GrizzardGrizzard

On a warm Saturday afternoon and days full of choral . litical narrative with their neighbors in July of 2018, the trams in , The 2018 celebration is slated to and a tradition of festivals that , are all packed. A tram ap- be the most highly attended song UNESCO recognized in 2003 in its proaches a stop, but when it be- festival in history, partly because the Second Proclamation of Masterpieces of comes clear that no one is getting celebration is two-fold: 2018 marks the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Hu- off , the driver doesn’t bother to open the centennial year for Latvia, and manity. the doors, and the dozens of hope- the small nation has been marking ful riders on the street corner merely the anniversary with events around smile and wave. the world starting in 2017 and con- The Festival Begins On the tram, air is not circulating tinuing through 2021. Latvia shares One of the fi rst events of the 26th and the temperature is rising above its centennial year, and its song festi- Latvian Song Festival took place on 100°F, yet the crowded riders are all val heritage, with its neighbors, Es- Saturday, June 30, 2018: the high- smiles. As the tram zips through tidy, tonia and ; the choral cul- ly anticipated choir competition bustling urban districts, the entire ture and political inspiration of these known as Dziesmu Kari [Song Wars]. tram breaks out into song, “rum-ta, Baltic states have gained global rec- Throughout a long sixteen-hour rum-ta, rum-ta-ri-di-dee”: cheery lines ognition through James Tusty’s 2006 day, choirs met in the great hall of from a children’s folk song. Everyone documentary “The Singing Revolu- Latvia University to compete in is in a good mood, because they are tion” and the 2013 book The Power four categories: mixed choir, men’s headed to the Mežaparks outdoor of Song by Guntis Šmidchens. These choir, women’s choir, and senior arena for choir practice. The 26th works, among many others, provide choir. The hall was standing-room Latvian Song Festival has begun, powerful glimpses into the ways that only throughout a rotation of choirs and for this nation of singers, it’s a lot the political history of these nations performing three or four song sets to celebrate. Approximately 20,000 cannot be told without an under- each, and the atmosphere was tense; participants and 30,000 visitors have standing of the cultural identity as a lot had already happened to get gathered in Riga for the nine-day a “singing people.” While to this moment. Over the past three festival that features dancing, pa- celebrate their own heritage and years, each of these choirs had been rades, fairs, conferences, speeches, history, they share a cultural and po- evaluated by song festival virsdiriģenti

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(literally “ruling conductors”) to de- sequently it was performed twenty A sparse minor landscape is termine three things: times throughout the day. As each established, and a delicate alto mel- choir interpreted this haunting slow- ody builds to an impassioned arrival 1) whether your choir qualifi es to boil of a piece, Plakidis’s sensitive (m. 32-38) on the text “Your roots join the festival’s mass choir treatment of the text by Latvian poet in your land, your feet in your gar- Vizma Belševica (1931-2005) could den” before patiently returning to 2) whether your choir qualifi es to easily be appreciated (Figure 1): calm and a resolute, pianississimo compete in the Song Wars fi nish. Hearing this work in live per- As long as the white wings of the formance, even the most vacuous 3) your amount of government stork glide over the Holy, foreign visitor must begin to under- funding As long as the glow of white wings stand that this Song Festival is about in blue current falls, more than concerts and parades: it is For the 2018 festival, 160 mixed As long as the blue streams in Zem- about a nation expressing its identi- choirs were initially evaluated, from gale fl ow, ty and sharing its collective story of Latvia’s population of approximate- Be calm, believe, know: your land struggle, loss, freedom, and peace. ly 2 million people. Of those choirs, will remain. 33 were selected for a semifi nal com- Your roots in your land, your feet in petition that took place in early June, your garden, Nineteenth Century: and the top twenty performed in the As long as the white wings give holy A National Awakening June 30 fi nals. Performance sets must shade over your father’s roof. The fi rst Latvian Song Festival include one specifi c selection from took place in 1873, when Latvia the festival songbook: for the mixed (Vizma Belševica, was not yet a sovereign nation. At choir, the selection is Tava Saknes Tavā translations by Mark Grizzard) that time, much of modern Latvia Zemē [Your Roots in Your Land] by was part of the Russian Empire and Pēteris Plakidis (1947-2017). Con- dominated by a land-owning class of German nobility. Serfdom had end- ed earlier in the century, yet many ethnic Latvians continued to struggle as a peasant class. Some, however, had begun enrolling in universities in the 1850s, and a “National Awak- ening” by those known as the Young Latvians sought to promote and culture in mainstream circles. In the summer of 1873, ap- proximately 1,000 performers gath- ered in Riga for two days of singing, with the fi rst day comprising mostly religious and the second day focusing on . The anthem Dievs, Svētī Latviju! [God Bless Latvia] premiered; it notably gave a unifi ed name to Latvia but made no claim to political independence. Nonethe- Song festival crowds entering Mežaparks for a concert. less, this event helped galvanize a

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strengthened cultural identity, and Light, however, was centuries old: would be manifest when Latvians Latvian Song Festivals continued ap- when thirteenth-century invaders were again free and independent. proximately every fi ve years, grow- destroyed ancient castles in Latvian Auskelis’s poem was completed ing in attendance and participation. territories, folk tales sprouted about in 1873, and Vītols completed his At the 5th Song Festival in 1910, sunken castles and the possibility choral setting of it in one day. Ga- the Song Festival featured Gaisma Pils that a castle would rise if someone ismas Pils would go on to become [Castle of Light], composed in 1889 correctly guessed its name. For nine- the most-performed work at Latvian by Jāzeps Vītols (1863-1948) to an teenth-century Young Latvians in Song Festivals, and 2018 was no ex- 1873 poem by Miķelis Krogzemis search of ethnic pride, these castles ception. Well after midnight on June (1850-1879), a poet better known as took on new symbolic meaning as 30, 2018, after Song Wars results Auskelis. The topic of the Castle of a source of cultural strength that were announced and winners were

.

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determined, performers and audi- ence members sang the piece togeth- er, displaying both an inexhaustible love of singing and a fi erce unity of spirit. Gaismas Pils (Figure 2) is a Roman- tic tour de force. Impassioned, Schuber- tian chromaticisms and freedom of tempo bring to mind the expressive ideals of the late nineteenth century, when European audiences were cap- tivated by the exotic and the ancient. However, to hear twenty-fi rst-centu- The festival’s opening parade, fi nishing at the Freedom Monument. ry sing these passages, one realizes that something very present that followed Latvia’s Declaration invaded France, a new ultimatum and very genuine is being expressed. of Independence on November 18, was handed to the Baltic states: their As the fi nal stanza tells of the ris- 1918. This monument was unveiled governments must resign. And with ing of the Castle of Light, the piece in 1935, a year in which the young that, these newly independent coun- builds to a fi nal cadence in major nation struggled under the author- tries had become occupied territo- that encapsulates the infectious hope itarian regime of Kārlis Ulmanis, ries within the USSR. and joy of this nation. and it would serve as a focal sym- What followed were years of trau- bol for the struggle and spirit of the ma and tragedy for the Latvian peo- Latvian people throughout a very ple; a “year of horror” commenced Modern Life in the Old City turbulent 20th Century. A brief ac- as Soviets implemented Stalinist On Sunday, July 1, locals, tourists, count of these events may be helpful practices, murdering and deport- and choristers poured into Riga’s to visitors in beginning to appreciate ing tens of thousands of Latvians. Old City district to enjoy the beau- what this monument and this festival During the war, Latvia was occupied tiful weather, to visit booths show- mean to the Latvian people. by the Nazis, who enacted their own casing Latvian crafts and cuisine, brutal subjugation; Soviets even- to stroll through city parks charm- tually helped bring about German ingly decorated for the festival, and Twentieth Century: defeat through heavy fi ghting in Lat- to enjoy the ongoing free outdoor Strangers Break the Gate via. In whole, over 200,000 Latvians concerts in Vermanēs Garden. The On September 1, 1939, World died in the war. opening parade wound through the War II began when Germany invad- In 1944, Soviets regained con- cobblestone streets of Old City all ed Poland, one week after signing a trol of Latvia and quickly instituted afternoon, passing shops, cafés, and non-aggression pact with the Sovi- Sovietization, an organized attempt the medieval spires of Riga Cathe- et Union. Soviet leader Josef Stalin to eradicate Latvian identity and dral and St. Peter’s Church; each soon issued an ultimatum to Estonia, impose cultural membership in the participating choir donned tradi- Latvia, and Lithuania: he must be USSR. (This included over 130,000 tional Latvian garb to wave, shout, given permission to establish mili- continued deportations to Siberia: a and sing with onlookers, bands, and tary bases on those countries, or the sentence with a 40% mortality rate.) local offi cials. The parade route fi t- Soviets would invade within twen- Song festivals, however, continued, tingly ended at the Freedom Mon- ty-four hours. The peaceful, practi- and 1948 witnessed the “First Song ument, which honors those who cal, singing nations acquiesced. In Festival of Soviet Latvia.” Šmid- fought in the War of Independence the summer of 1940, after Germany chens writes:

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“Culture, as seen by Stalin and Saule, Pērkons, Daugava [Sun, Thun- members still waited until songs the Soviets, contained a mech- der, Daugava], written in 1988 by were over before leaving or enter- anism that would transform the Mārtiņš Brauns (b. 1951). The text, ing the seating area. The northern people who remained after the by Latvian poet Rainis (1865-1929), mid-summer sun fi nally began set- military violence ended. Poetry, is a sweeping ancient legend of the ting around 11pm, and the mood songs, and mass events such as creation of the river Daugava and of the concert only became increas- the Baltic song-and-dance fes- fi ght between Thunder and the Dev- ingly focused. The songs for which tivals played an essential role in il. Soviet censors allowed it as my- the crowd and the singers were most Stalinist and post-Stalinist poli- thology, but Latvians heard in this eagerly waiting came at the end, and cies…. The purpose of culture, work a clear call for Latvian autono- when the mass choir, and many au- as imagined by Stalin, was to my. (A translated excerpt: “Latvians dience members, came together to physiologically condition hu- held the key to the gate, strangers sing Saule, Pērkons, Daugava and Ga- mans to adopt new behavior. broke the gate, and the key fell into ismas Pils, the tens of thousands of Their [the Soviets] goal was the sea.”) Brauns’s setting (Figure 3) Latvians seemed to be singular in the creation and cultivation of is both ancient and contemporary, thought and expression. a new breed of people, the ‘So- revealing the infl uence of the rock viet human.’”1 music that also proved to be a pow- erful force in the Singing Revolu- The Of course, artistic expression tion: delicate accompaniment asides This national unity had been test- was tightly controlled under Soviet (m. 14) become crashing percussion ed and tried in the late 1980s and rule. Membership in the compos- pulses (m. 22) as the dramatic tale of early 1990s, when the USSR, having er’s union was required in order to cultural strength unfolds. undergone restructuring in the Gor- have one’s music performed, and The power of this music, and the bachev era, grasped onto its control each work needed to be approved by incredible cultural weight of choral of the Baltics by force. Latvians orga- party offi cials. Dievs, Svētī Latviju was music in Latvia, was manifest at the nized a series of peaceful “calendar banned, not only for its overt nation- festival’s closing concert Zvaigžņu demonstrations” on dates of signifi - alism but for its reference to God, Ceļā [Following the Starry Path] on cance: the fi rst of these, commemo- and any clear expression of Latvi- July 9. Festival attendees swarmed rating 1941 mass deportations by the an identity was omitted from public into Mežaparks, a sprawling wood- Soviets on June 14, 1987, included a performance. Remarkably, Gaismas ed park on the edge of town that moment of silence as fi ve thousand Pils was allowed performance at the contains a gigantic amphitheater Latvians circled the Freedom Mon- 1948 Soviet Song Festival; to Soviet built, and recently expanded, for this ument. Soviet police blasted an am- offi cials it was an example of folk event. Despite seating for 30,000, the plifi ed radio broadcast during the mythology, innocuously removed concert is sold out, as was the previ- silence, but the public sang songs from politics. To Latvians, howev- ous night’s dress rehearsal. Over the to drown out the loudspeakers. On er, this and other pieces (such as the course of four hours, bands played, January 13, 1991, Latvians received powerful unoffi cial anthem Pūt, Vē- children sang, dancers performed, word that Soviet military forces had jiņi) took on enormous signifi cance. and a choir of over 15,000 singers killed fourteen Lithuanian civilians As decades of occupation contin- sang under the rotating direction during demonstrations in Vilnius, ued, Latvians would fi nd strength of the various virsdiriģenti. Around and that the Soviets aimed to take and unity in choral works that veiled and under the stadium seating was over mass communication hubs and themselves in folklore yet expressed a small city of food vendors, coff ee the Latvian Ministry of the Interior their identity as a people and their machines, and craft booths; despite in Riga. Thousands of Latvian ci- continued striving for freedom. the occasional ballpark atmosphere vilians gathered in Riga, built con- A wonderful example of this is of the mingling crowds, audience crete barricades, and parked rings

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of large cargo trucks around the but in a national spirit that embraces the twenty-fi rst century, navigating national parliament. They also built the ancient past, honors the strug- similar cultural ideals as music-mak- impromptu stages on which a vari- gles of the recent past, and is fully ers around the globe, yet immersed in ety of musicians performed, and lo- and wholly in the present. a cultural heritage that knows its past. cal choirs organized round-the-clock A tourist to this festival is left with patrols while they waited. They a marvelous appreciation for the knew they had no hope of military The Festival Closes power of this choral culture, but also victory. Ingrid Rüütel, the president In the early hours of Monday an awareness that its meaning is far of the Baltica Association, stated: morning, July 9, 2018, the 26th Lat- more keenly understood by the Lat- vian Song Festival concluded, but vian people than any foreign visitor. “We, the small nations of the the music did not stop: Sadziedāšanās “Tourists are welcome to the festival,” Baltic countries, cannot rely on Nakts [Singalong Night], began, and one remarked, “but this is physical force. For us of great- musicians stayed on the Mežaparks for us.” One senses that for this na- est importance is our intellec- stage to sing pop songs, dance folk tion, to sing is to declare an identity. tual composure and inward superiority even in the most diffi cult situations. The Baltic nations confront military force and the arms with persistence, strength of soul, and feeling of solidarity, which are invigorat- ed and deepened with the help of our songs and dances.”2

The world watched as people of the Baltic states clearly and peaceful- ly declared their desire for freedom. After more violent crackdowns in The closing concert Zvaigžņu Ceļā 1991 did not provoke any violence from the Baltic people, Soviet leader dances, and let loose until 5:00am. The term “Singing Revolution” was Boris Yeltsin ordered the violence to One of the songs sung at around coined by Estonian journalist Heinz stop. Latvian tactics shifted to par- 3:30am was Mazā Bilžu Rāmītī [In Valk, who in 1988 wrote: liamentary ones, and full indepen- My Little Picture Frame], record- dence for the Republic of Latvia was ed by Latvian pop singer Renārs “A nation who makes its revo- restored on August 21, 1991. Kaupers. This delicate, catchy bal- lution by singing and smiling Latvia joined the European lad was recently set for SSSAATBB should be a sublime example Union in 2003, and in 2013 the chorus by arguably the most famous to all… With their actions, they World Bank classifi ed it as a high-in- Latvian working today: have earned the irrefutable right come country. Riga shows signs of Ēriks Ešenvalds. Ešenvalds,3 who to exist under their blue sky on connection to the West, with En- appeared at the 2018 festival and their hereditary fatherland. I glish-language pop songs on the ra- premiered a choral-orchestral work am proud to be a member of dio and the occasional McDonald’s at its Vokālsimfoniskās concert, sets such a people!”4 and KFC franchises. However, it re- Kaupers’s song with a nod to con- tains a character all its own, not only temporary a cappella (Figure 4). Here, Choral musicians across the globe in architecture, culture, and cuisine, the choral music of Latvia is fully in should be proud to see such a people

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free in their own land, expressing NOTES 2 Ibid., 297. themselves in liberty and peace, and 3 Readers interested in Eriks Esenvalds giving all of us an example of how 1 Guntis Šmidchens, The Power of Song: should see: Vance Wolverton, the world can change when people Nonviolent National Culture in the Baltic “Ēriks Ešenvalds: Latvia’s Choral come together in song. Singing Revolution (Seattle, WA: Enfant Extraordinaire” Choral University of Washington Press, Journal 53 no 4 (November 2012). 2013): 136-137. 4 Šmidchens, 245.

Bibliography and Continued Reading

Boiko, Martin, “The Latvian Folk Music Movement in the 1980s and 1990s: From Authenticity to Postfolklore and Onwards.” The World of Music 43, no. 2/3 (2001): 113-118.

Jundzis, Tālavs and Zigmārs Turcinskis, “Resistance to the Soviet and Nazi Regimes in Latvia, 1940-1985.” In Jānis Roze, ed. Latvia and Latvians, (pp. 710-751); Jānis Roze Publishing House, 2017.

Karnes, Kevin C., “A Garland of Songs for a Nation of Singers: An Episode in the History of Russia, the Herderi- an Tradition and the Rise of Baltic Nationalism.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 130, no. 2 (2005): 197-235.

King, Viola Olga, “Latvia’s Unique Path Toward Independence: The Challenges Associated with the Transition from a Soviet Republic to an Independent State.” International Social Science Review 87, no. 3/4 (2012): 127-54.

Kudiņš, Jānis, “The National Music Identity In The Global Cultural Crossroad: Some Still Topical Local Problems in The Latvian Writing.” & Cultural Science 11.1 (2015): 37-44.

Kupriss, Anita, “A Conductor’s Analysis of Four Secular Works by Pēteris Vasks: Māte Saule, Zemgale, Litene, and Three Poems by Czeslaw Milosz.” Boston University Press: Boston, 2009.

Lazda, Mara, “Gender and Totalitarianism: Soviet and Nazi Occupations of Latvia, 1940-1945” (PhD diss., Indi- ana University, 2005).

Pabriks, Artis and Aldis Purs, “Latvia: The Challenges of Change,” in The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (London: Routledge, 2002), 30.

Šmidchens, Guntis, “A Heritage of Baltic Song Celebration Songs.” Culture Crossroads 9 (2016): 7-19.

Tusty, James, The Singing Revolution. DVD. Directed and written by Maureen Castel Tusty, James Tusty, and Mike Majoros. New York: Sky Films, 2006.

United Nations Educational, Scientifi c and Cultural Organization, “Proclamation of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” https://ich.unesco.org/en/proclamationw-of-masterpieces-00103.

Wolverton, Vance, “Breaking the Silence: Choral Music of the Baltic Republics. Part II: Latvia.” Choral Journal 38, no. 9 (1998): 37-44.

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