The day started off quietly, both with us and on the streets of Tallinn. Suspect a few people might have been sleeping off yesterday's events. But we made our move out of the hotel mid-morning, and started to make our way out to the Festival Grounds again. We couldn't get lost — we just had to follow the people in national costume legging it off with some form of determination.
If you thought the first Laulupidu concert „Õpetajale” was incredible, to quote The Jazz Singer, "You ain't seen nothin' yet!" The second concert, „Minu Arm” (My Love, from the poem by Lydia Koidula, „Mu isamaa on minu arm”, "My fatherland is my love", first set to music for the first Estonian Song Festival in 1869, and still part of the proceedings with a different setting) started at 2pm today, and ran for eight full hours. It might have been shorter but for the choirs themselves calling for encores — they just wanted to sing! After each piece, the composer was called up to take a bow with the conductor. In one instance, where the composer was also a recognised conductor, the two of them chose to conduct the encore jointly — it was a great example of professional teamwork!
Different ensembles took the stage at different times, and it was an education to see how quickly and efficiently the huge transitions took place!
The crowd was just as big today as it was yesterday!
As I did for yesterday's concert, here is a rough run-down of the event
The groups performing, in order, were...
- Children's Choir (4 pieces, 166 choirs, 5553 singers)
- Wind Orchestra (4 pieces, 57 orchestras, 1368 musicians)
- Young Children's Select Choir (4 pieces, 185 choirs, 6642 singers)
- Female Choir (4 pieces, 118 choirs, 4527 singers)
- Symphony Orchestra (4 pieces, 27 orchestras, 788 musicians)
- Joint Orchestra (1 piece in 3 movements, 49 orchestras, 1357 musicians)
- Boys' Choir (2 pieces, 125 choirs, 3881 singers)
- Boys' Choir and Male Choir (3 pieces, 163 choirs, 5014 singers)
- Male Choir (3 pieces, 44 choirs, 1270 singers)
- Mixed Choir (4 pieces, 331 choirs, 11,436 singers)
- Joint Choir (5 pieces, 670 choirs, 22,021 singers + audience participation)
Part of the 11,000-strong women's
choir doing choralography!
The official telecast of the whole concert, all 8 hours of it, is unfortunately no longer available on YouTube. If you have the chance, you really should have a look, at least at parts of it. The whole concert was magnificent, unforgettable ... choose any more superlatives, and they will probably still be understatement!
The picture from the back of the audience with the choir of 22,000 on stage!
... and from the air!
The concert began at 2pm and ended after 8pm, and we made our way back to the hotel. It was still a lot lighter than last night, so the twilight walk back was quite pleasant. On our way back, we took a somewhat variant route, and walked through the grounds of Kadriorg Palace Palace, a Baroque palace built for Catherine I of Russia by Peter the Great, and now an art museum.
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