ESTONIAN SYMPHONIC MUSIC. THE FIRST CENTURY 1896-1996.
At the beginning of the republican period Heino Eller, having graduated from
the Conservatoire in St. Petersburg in 1920, rose to the fore among other composers.
His first outstanding composition, still well known, is the tone poem Koit (Dawn,
1920). With this work Eller introduced several novel features into Estonian
symphonism. The influences of Romanticism are felt (Grieg) and the epic tone reveals
Nordic crispness.1
The main theme sounds fresh in its pastoral-elegiac mood:
Example 17.
In harmonisation the composer makes use of crisp diatonics in unison with
seventh chords. The secondary theme exists only conventionally, being a phrase long
image; a link in the transition process shaping no independent section:
Example 18.
The character of this Fl-Cl motion in thirds on a mild background of figurative
strings is reminiscent of the middle section of Grieg’s Nocturne.2
1
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