Choir singing, words amplified by music, has accompanied Estonians for centuries. Singing has power. The American social scientist Robert Putnam, who has examined the mechanisms of civil society, has emphasised, among other common activities, the tradition of choir singing, which increases people's mutual trust and social sense of security. According to Putnam, the existence of common traditions is a guarantee of the success of today's democratic reforms as well.

The cultural history of Estonians proves that amply - choir singing has encouraged us for several centuries, both at times of distress and at turning points in our history. The awakening of Estonians' sense of nationhood occurred at a time when the ideas of Gottfried von Herder were spreading throughout Europe. His ideas inspired Baltic German Estophiles as well as the first Estonian intellectuals. Herder adopted the notion of folk songs (Volkslied) and associated singing in one's mother tongue with cultural identity. Thus the first Estonian choirs emerged, imitating Baltic German examples, but still in rural centres, amidst peasant culture. Choir singing was closely connected with Estonian-language education: the choirs mostly operated at parish schools and churches.

In the early 18th century the polyphonic song was heard at Kanepi private school in southern Estonia and at the Torma and Laiuse parish schools in today's Jõgevamaa. Soon Estonian-language choir songs resounded all over the country. At first people sang polyphonic sacral melodies, but later also secular songs.

In the second half of the 19th century, the song and drama societies became centres of national 'awakening'. Local choir conductors, pastors and other clergy often headed the national movement. In towns, two main societies established in 1865 provided choral singing with an organisational foundation - the 'Vanemuine' in Tartu and 'Estonia' in Tallinn.

In 1869 when Estonia still belonged to the Russian empire, the first song festival took place in Tartu, where 46 male choirs with 822 singers performed.(1) The programme included two Estonian songs as well: Aleksander Kunileid's 'My Fatherland Is My Love' and 'Until I Die', both based on the texts of our nationally spirited poet, Lydia Koidula. The famous song by Fredrik Pacius, 'My Fatherland, My Pride and Joy', was also first sung then. It later became the national anthem of the Republic of Estonia. This was the time when Estonian folk songs were first methodically collected.

Estonian professional music also began with choral songs, written by choir conductors who worked as clergymen. The most outstanding figure in the music of the awakening period was Karl August Hermann - journalist, linguist, amateur musician, and author of several patriotic songs that became hugely popular. In the late 19th century, choir music was written by the first generation of professional Estonian musicians, who mostly studied organ music at St Petersburg Conservatory.

The early Estonian choir song was child-like and pleasant sounding, influenced by Lutheran hymns and the German Liedertafel-style. However, during the first third of the 20th century, university- educated composers also wrote the first major vocal works: Rudolf Tobias's oratory 'The Mission of Jonah' and Artur Kapp's oratory 'Job', both faithfully following the classical-romantic tradition. They and the Estonian choir music tradition generally are characterised by a markedly 'restorative' feature. They have always contained flickers of nostalgia and mighty metaphors, or they sizzled with the spirit of dissident thinking. Tobias's biblical 'The Mission of Jonah' performed in 1909 sounded like a prediction and in the 1990s like a parable of a nation which had managed to escape from the belly of the whale'.

During the first period of independence, choral singing was a popular genre, with most songs written by the generation of composers educated at the Tallinn Conservatory. Choral singing was also organisationally encouraged and supported by the state - in 1921 the Singers' Association, the umbrella organisation of choral singing, was established. In addition the period between the two world wars introduced a large number of new choir songs that quickly became classics. The entirety of European music was at that time characterised by aspirations of total independence. The pendulum swung back only in the second half of the century, when a synchretist understanding of music prevailed again. The music market demanded both saints and sinners. People realised that music was a field of art where the subconscious desire for an ideal and 'blind' physical collectivism plays a significant role.

Today's cultural situation differs considerably from the birth and heyday period of choral singing. Genres, technology and forms of communication have all changed: direct participation has been replaced by passive listening and sound recording. Instead of imagination there is visual dominance, instead of seriousness jest, instead of loftiness playfulness. Modernism did not favour the oldfashioned collective pathos of choral singing, preferring an abstract form of music. Likewise, the contemporary cult of play refuses to take choral singing seriously. We may therefore ask whether this strange twist of history has passed, and whether choral music has become a kind of 'archaism'.

Choral music certainly has features that will not let it become totally out-of-date. For example the synchretist concept of culture associated with choral singing splendidly suits the communication rules of commercialised media and an advertisement society. It is quite clear today that large masses of people are not attracted by experimental, avant-garde 'verbal art'. On the other hand, the much trivialised rampant spoken language is devaluing the meaning of words. It makes you yearn for the 'genuine'. Choral music is an ideal refuge for the unspoilt Word: great metaphors, heritage and sacred incantations are increasingly in demand in our seemingly rationalised and demythologised world. "In all my works I rely on words. The word is primary, just as in regilaul," says Veljo Tormis.

The triumph of liberalism makes the world more complicated by the day. Instability is being balanced by (neo)conservative thinking. As for Putnam, the export of democracy and the hotbeds of war, it seems to me that ancient common traditions can only accept new customs and habits that will not drastically clash with the ancient cultural heritage.

It is therefore more important than ever, for both people and countries, to find something universal, common to all. But what could this something be? Is it hidden in songs that unite national communities? Perhaps by now there are only virtual communities who know no terrestrial or linguistic boundaries. We have no idea. What is certain is that songs entail power. And that music is able, albeit for only a moment, to cross the borders between cultures and abysses between people.

(1) On the same topic see: de cultu civili estonico no. I, MMIV.

Evi Arujärv (1953), music critic, essayist.