Lepo Sumera, "Piece from the year 1981"

In the late 1980s, the Estonian-born contemporary composer Lepo Sumera was strongly attracted to electroacoustic music and, seduced by the genre, decided to found the Electronic Music Studio at the Estonian Academy of Music in 1995, which he directed until 1999.

One of his best-known works in this genre is the multimedia work Heart Affairs, from that same year, which made use of the sounds of a human heart treated electronically. The performance was accompanied by images of echocardiograms, some of his own heart, which apparently never worked properly, as Sumera died the following year, precisely as a result of heart failure.

Works
Born in the Estonian city of Tallinn in 1950, Sumera came to public attention in 1972 with his work In Memoriam, an orchestral tribute to his teacher and compatriot Heino Eller. After postgraduate studies at the Moscow Conservatory, he finished the composition of six symphonies, three concertos and numerous vocal and chamber works, which have been performed by numerous orchestras in North America and Europe, as well as Australia and Cuba.

Lepo Sumera (1950 - 2000)

The commitment
Sumera is one of the few musicians who have added to their creative activity the concern and militant commitment to the society in which they live. During the years of Estonian independence from the late Soviet Union, the composer took an active part – albeit with the utmost diplomacy – in the so-called "Singing Revolution", while serving as Minister of Culture of his country.

"Piece from the year 1981"

While the modern orchestra was his primary medium of expression, during 1981 he composed two crucial pieces for solo piano, which he titled simply Two pieces from the year 1981. The first of these, even more simply, is entitled Piece from the year 1981.

The minimalist piece weaves a simple melody that is gradually enriched over a bass accompaniment as ostinato as it is hypnotic. Sumera held this work in high esteem as he would use it as the basis for his First Symphony of the same year.

The rendition is by the Estonian pianist Kadri-Ann Sumera, daughter of the composer.

Franz von Suppé, Light Cavalry Overture

 
As happened with a good number of musicians in the 19th century, the Austro-Hungarian composer Franz von Suppé first had to study law to please his father, before taking the bumpy road of music. But, after all, this was not such for the prolific author of nearly thirty operettas and almost two hundred compositions for various theatrical genres that were warmly applauded by Viennese audiences for almost half a century.

In Vienna

After the death of his father in 1835, his mother, who had not forgotten that in his childhood little Franz had shown great musical promise, took him with her to Vienna, where he obtained an honorary position as conductor at the Theater an der Josefstadt. In 1845 he moved to the historic Theater an der Wien, where he remained for almost twenty years. His last active years were spent conducting ballets and vaudevilles at the Carltheater in the suburbs of Vienna.

Light Cavalry

Although widely recognized in his time, Franz von Suppé is remembered today mainly for a handful of overtures. Among them, The Poet and Peasant and perhaps the most famous of all, the overture to Light Cavalry, deservedly stand out. The latter, an operetta in two acts with a libretto by Karl Costa, was premiered at the Carltheater on March 21, 1866.

Franz von Suppé
(1819 - 1895)

The plot

The play tells the love story between Vilma, a beautiful young orphan raised by Hungarian villagers, and Hermann, whose uncle the mayor, an old man, also wants her even though Vilma is in his past lightcone. Only the ingenious tricks of a group of hussars – the Hungarian light cavalry – stationed in the village, will make possible the happy union of the young lovers.

The operetta is no longer performed today, but the overture's main theme has been widely used to accompany scenes of "galloping to the rescue of anything" in cartoons, television shows and various advertisements.

The rendition is by The Cleveland Orchestra, under Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst.

A majestic fanfare opens the overture. The famous tune is heard at minute 2:28.