Elts warns underfunding threatens Estonian culture’s future

Olari Elts, chief conductor of the Estonian State Symphony Orchestra, has warned that growing underfunding poses a serious threat to the sustainability of Estonian culture, ERR reported. He said the orchestra is in excellent artistic shape and has recovered its audience numbers from the low point of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Estonian State Symphony Orchestra, known by its Estonian acronym ERSO, begins its 100th season this week. Elts described the anniversary as a remarkable achievement for a small country.

He said ERSO is currently experiencing one of the strongest periods in its history. Musicians from across Europe and beyond are applying for positions, and all competitions for vacant posts are international.

“Very, very good young musicians are coming,” Elts said, adding that it remained uncertain how long the orchestra could retain them at its current salary levels. He said ERSO nevertheless offered genuinely competitive artistic challenges compared with symphony orchestras elsewhere in Europe.

ERSO began after its first concert with only three musicians, and its membership initially grew slowly. As an orchestra belonging to a private radio station, it faced pressure to perform shorter and lighter programmes for its audience. Although more serious music was also played, arrangements of well-known orchestral works for salon orchestra made up most of the early repertoire.

The economic crisis of the 1930s reduced the orchestra to more of an ensemble. Its membership began growing rapidly again in 1934, when the Estonian state recognised the importance of the institution after initially viewing it with suspicion.

A key turning point came when Olav Roots became chief conductor. Elts said Roots transformed attitudes towards orchestral music in Estonia by demanding thorough preparation from every musician and close adherence to the score.

Because music occupied a large share of radio broadcasts and the orchestra performed live several times a week, the workload was enormous. The repertoire played at the time included more than 1,000 works, Elts said. Under Roots, Estonian composers also gained far greater opportunities to write for the orchestra.

The next major setback came with the outbreak of the war. Despite this, ERSO grew into an almost full-sized symphony orchestra during the 1940s and reached its current size only in the post-war years.

Elts said most European national orchestras were founded either as philharmonic orchestras at the end of the 19th century or as radio orchestras from the 1920s onward. ERSO was founded during the first wave of radio orchestras, a year after the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and in the same year as the Latvian National Orchestra and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.