{"id":931,"date":"2017-02-26T17:08:07","date_gmt":"2017-02-26T15:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tubinsociety.com\/?page_id=931"},"modified":"2018-01-09T14:25:57","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T12:25:57","slug":"vardo-rumessen","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.tubinsociety.com\/?page_id=931&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Vardo Rumessen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"rumessentubin-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo<\/strong>: Eduard Tubin and Vardo Rumessen in 1981.<\/em><\/p>\n

Vardo Rumessen (8 August 1941 \u2013 25 August 2015) was born in Tallinn to a family of musicians . He studied in the piano class at the State Conservatory in Tallinn with professors Bruno Lukk and Eugen Kelder, graduating in 1971. For his graduation work Rumessen compiled a three-volume issue of the complete piano works of Mart Saar with commentary. In 1972 his tutor Johannes J\u00fcrisson asked him to perform Saar\u2019s preludes for the festivities dedicated to the 90th<\/sup> year of Saar\u2019s birth. This was the beginning of more than four decades of fruitful activities researching and presenting Estonian classical music.<\/p>\n

Already during his studies, Rumessen became concert master of the Conservatory\u2019s opera studio (1969-1972). He then worked as music editor at Estonian Radio (1973), piano instructor at the Tallinn Pedagogical Institute (1973-1975), senior piano instructor at the Conservatory (1971-1991), editor of music scores of the Estonian Music Fund (1978-1985), and producer at the Estonian Concert Bureau (1987-1992).<\/p>\n

Rumessen was well known as a discoverer and evaluator of the achievements of Estonian classical music, bringing forth the extraordinarily rich musical heritage of a small country. He discovered or brought out of oblivion more than a hundred musical gems and published and performed works of Rudolf Tobias, Mart Saar, Heino Eller, Eduard Oja and Eduard Tubin.<\/p>\n

Especially notable is his organizing the performance of Tobias\u2019 oratorio Des Jona Sendung<\/em> in 1989 at the Estonia concert hall conducted by Peeter Lilje. The score, edited, corrected and completed by Rumessen, was published by Swedish publisher Nordiska Musikf\u00f6rlaget in 1996. Des Jona Sendung<\/em> is regarded as one of the greatest discoveries of the 20th<\/sup> century \u2013 not only in Estonian but in the whole of European musical life.<\/p>\n

In the beginning, Rumessen considered Tubin\u2019s music as too modernistic, but after studying it closer together with Karl Leichter, he reached the conclusion that there was nothing comparable in Estonian music regarding the depth of the content and the mastery of compositional technique. Rumessen started researching and performing Tubin\u2019s works and met the composer personally in Tallinn in 1976. In 1981 he gave a recital of Tubin\u2019s complete piano music at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, in the presence of the composer. This great success in Stockholm led to a six-year ban in his Communist homeland on performing and travelling abroad. In 2000 Rumessen founded the International Tubin Society and began the publishing of Tubin\u2019s \u201cCollected Works\u201d.<\/p>\n

A supporter and co-worker in many of Rumessen\u2019s projects was Neeme J\u00e4rvi, also a tireless promoter of Estonian music, who shared Rumessen\u2019s conviction that culture is not just entertainment, but a spiritual striving towards higher goals; the foundation of a nation.<\/p>\n

Rumessen was a pianist of great diligence, making numerous concert tours to many countries in Europe, to Asia, America and Australia. His piano playing is preserved on some 40 records, of which 22 are solo CDs. His recording in 1988 of Tubin\u2019s complete piano works on three CDs for the Swedish BIS company was his greatest international success.<\/p>\n

Rumessen is a pianist of\u00a0 very considerable stature and Tubin is fortunate in having so commanding and sensitive an advocate.
\nRobert Layton
\nGramophone 1989 No. 5 (Great Britain)<\/p>\n

Vardo Rumessen’s performances seem splendid. He has all the technique in the world, and the ability to get inside the music and make a most persuasive case for it. The piano sound is very open and natural… Recommended with enthusiasm.
\nHenry Fogel
\nFanfare 1989 No. 5 (USA)<\/p>\n

A recognition of Rumessen\u2019s talent was also expressed by British music critic Bob Barnett in 2001, who wrote that Rumessen had abandoned a world career as pianist in order to propagate Estonian music \u2013 thereby showing his rare intellectual and artistic range.<\/p>\n

In his last years Rumessen produced several magnificent records of the piano works of Bach, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms and Scriabin.<\/p>\n

With his encyclopaedic knowledge, Rumessen became an internationally recognized authority on Estonian classical music. He lectured on several international musicology conferences in Estonia, Latvia, Sweden, America and Germany, compiled and wrote books on Tobias, Saar, Kapp, Oja and Tubin and wrote a wealth of articles on the most varied subjects. Altogether Rumessen published 120 scores and books.<\/p>\n

Rumessen was a member of Soviet Estonian Composers\u2019 Union (from 1973, also of its board), founding member of Union of Estonian Performers (1998), honorary member of Estonian Music Academy (1999) and founding member of Estonian Music Council (1992). He founded the International Eduard Tubin Society in 2000 and was its chairman until his death.<\/p>\n

In 1989, two years before restoration of the independence of the Republic of Estonia, Rumessen started his political life. He had a central role in revolutionary change as an active member of various committees working for independence. In free Estonia he was a member of the basic law assembly, member of a conservative nationalist party and of the Estonian Parliament (1992-1995 and 1999-2003).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo: Eduard Tubin and Vardo Rumessen in 1981. Vardo Rumessen (8 August 1941 \u2013 25 August 2015) was born in Tallinn to a family of musicians . He studied in the piano class at the State Conservatory in Tallinn with professors Bruno Lukk and Eugen Kelder, graduating in 1971. For his graduation work Rumessen compiled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":739,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-931","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tubinsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tubinsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tubinsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tubinsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tubinsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.tubinsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1335,"href":"https:\/\/www.tubinsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/931\/revisions\/1335"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tubinsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tubinsociety.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}