Charming melodies that lured Francis Goya

  • 2001-08-23
  • Aleksei Gunter
TALLINN - To most people the music of Raimond Valgre might sound outdated. But not for Belgian guitar master Francis Goya, who thinks it's nothing but classically sentimental and very touching.

On a trip to Estonia in April 2001, someone told Goya about Valgre and later lent some records to the musician. The guitar maestro really liked the music so he started to look for a company to record his next album consisting entirely of Valgre's songs.

As a result, Goya spent some time holed up in a Tallinn studio last week, from Aug. 8 to 17, recording his vision of Valgre's creativity, with the help of Jean-Luc Drion, his orchestra conductor. Now the Estonian record company that will release the album, MFM Records, is looking for an international partner to make the CD available abroad. This is the chance for the late Valgre to finally get the international acclaim he deserves.

Raimond Valgre, one of Estonia's most popular composers, was born on October 7, 1913 in the village of Riisipere in central Estonia. He never studied music professionally, but his mother's musical skills and knowledge of foreign languages helped to determine his future career.

With the help of a guitar, a piano and an accordion, Valgre began to create the most beautiful music of his time. Usually he wrote the songs initially in German or English.

The Valgre family was the Tiisel family until 1937, when they decided to trade their German-sounding name for something more Estonian. In 1926 he entered a technical gymnasium to study civil engineering and graduated five years later. Then he did his time in the Estonian army, but it was not the last time he served in the forces.

During the year or two before World War II erupted, you could find Valgre playing at the Beach Salon in the coastal resort of Parnu. At the end of 1939 he formed a jazz band called The Merry Singers, which started to play at the salon the following summer. But the band played for only two weeks before the Soviets invaded Estonia.

The Russians conscripted Valgre to the Estonian corps, which fought for the Red Army. Being a musician, he played in military jazz bands and demobilized as a sergeant on V-Day, May 9, 1945.

Valgre's attempts to enter the Music Academy failed twice as his music did not fit the official art concepts of the Soviet Union, where "Western music" such as jazz and tango was banned after the war. Valgre's songs, once popular and widely broadcast over the radio and played in restaurants, were wiped out by the censure system.

The composer returned to Parnu, the summer city of his dreams and ballads, and died at the age of 36 on New Year's Eve in 1949, crushed by the state and alcoholism yet fondly remembered by many Estonians. Many of Raimond Valgre's songs were allowed to enter the mainstream music scene only after Nikita Khruschev came to power in 1953.

The first period of Valgre's music features the spirit of prewar Europe, full and satisfied, enjoying nights of jazz and days of slow news. His "war-time songs" period ended in 1945. More philosophical, and sometimes gloomy, motives appeared in his music in the last years of his life.

Estonian towns, cities and islands all served as sources of inspiration for Valgre. "Narva waltz," "Saaremaa polka," "Viljandi serenade," "Parnu ballad," and the hugely popular "Saaremaa waltz" are pearls of Valgre's legacy.

It's possible to study the geography of feelings a given place evokes. Valgre was fond of the natural beauty of the island of Saaremaa, the quiet atmosphere of Aegviidu village and the beaches of Parnu, but love and romance were the bottom line of his early music.

Valgre praised the Narva girls. "The town on Narva River/Oh, I could sing a lot about it/Thousands of pretty girls live there/All smart and nice" ("Narva waltz"), and the Estonian poet Debora Vaarandi was said to be the anonymous Saaremaa blonde in the "Saaremaa waltz": "Oh, turn around, whirl around, flaxen-haired baby/Your eyes are full of those seductive sparks/June meadows of Saaremaa, oh, those night meadows/Are what you could never find in the whole world."

The song Goya liked so much called "I hope I'll get over it" is one of the first Valgre wrote between 1931 and 1939, after he met Artur Ranne, who played violin, and they performed together occasionally.

"You don't love me/I hope I'll get over it/And will smile again then/It all started under the beautiful spring moon/And ended up when the leaves turned yellow/I hope I'll get over it."

Popular Estonian showman and cabaret owner Mart Sander, keeping in mind Tartu's annual Valgre Festival, once said: "There's no need to explain how important Valgre's music is for Estonian culture and to the Estonians. And it's really peculiar that in a country where national identity is based to a huge extent on Valgre's music as well, only one festival connected to the great composer is held annually."

Worldwide, perhaps the most well-known song by Valgre is "I hear a little story in the music." Alice Feillet, a woman he met in Parnu in 1939 and had a serious romance with, made a brilliant translation of Valgre's original text.