Medieval terracotta in Tartu

Have you ever seen the like? Following advice to 'head for the 14th century Jaani [St John's] church and its abundance of statues,' I guess I was expecting something like the interior of Bamberg's magnificent Dom.

There are in fact three 'big' statues, the largest according to their medium, of the Virgin Mary, Christ on the Cross and St John, but that's only relative to the material - terracotta.

I'd long wanted to visit Tartu, Estonia's major university town, but I expected something different, more along the lines of the other Hanseatic cities. It was indeed a member of that league, though very far inland, situated on the river Emajõgi. But it feels so remote: the drive from Tallinn is half an hour longer than the trip due south to the 'summer capital' Pärnu; halfway, you head east towards the Russian border, and similarly you see little but storks, fields, woods and the occasional lake, with only the occasional settlement. Most of the buildings on the hill, including the cathedral, were destroyed by Peter the Great's troops.

I only had time in the centre to walk around the old town, not much bigger than Pärnu's, though it has an attractive square (triangle) at one end rising towards the Town Hall

and includes the neoclassical university building.

The visit of composers and writers from the World Music Days Festival took us first to the National Museum, a vast and impressive new edifice built on a disused airfield 20 minutes' walk from the centre.

After our international group was welcomed by a village band playing some of the songs heard in Estonia's first Choral Festival, a tradition which started here,

we had a lunch, a tour of the 'Finno Ugric migration' exhibition (one of two permanent fixtures, well done but hardly revelatory, though it clarified for me that Estonians belong to this group and aren't Balts like Latvians and Lithuanians) and a rather dreary concert. Much better, in fact a festival highlight, was the programme given by the superlative Latvian Radio Choir in the Jaani Church. For the two of us who walked there, half an hour beforehand permitted a whizz around the university's botanic gardens and a quick perambulation of the streets.

The Jaani Church, its present version essentially of the 14th century, was originally decorated with around 2000 sculptures, uniquely modelled out of wet clay, not put into moulds, and then burnt. In August 1944 the church itself burnt down during the Soviet invasion. It was reconstructed in 1989 to serve as a concert hall.

Further work continued after Estonia's regained independence in 1991, with reconsecration in 2005. The people of Tartu gave a great deal of money for their city's greatest treasure, but there was also funding from the Republic, the Church of North-Elbe and the City of Lüneburg (also full of red-brick buildings; it's a place I'd love to visit). German organisations initiated the restoration of the sculptures, many of which sit on racks along the north wall.

For our evening event, we headed to the riverside

and the perfect small offspring of the National Vanamuine Theatre for Märt-Matis Lill's impressive full-length opera about the First World War, Into the Fire, catching a glimpse of Tartu's most unusual modern tower, the residential Tigutorn, on the way.

Tallinn's walls and towers looked as good as ever through fringes of leaves as Estonia's spring began, on cue in early May. My daily walk took me past the Pikk (Tall) Hermann tower Toompea Castle

before the tower of the Niguliste Museum (former St Nicholas Church) came into view.

Favourite eating discovery: the Väike cafe-restaurant opposite St Nicholas, with the friendliest waiting staff and every detail just perfect (superb bread, excellent soup, exquisite cakes). Two years ago on the way back from the Pärnu Festival, I sat outside here with fellow write Nahoko Gotoh and I remember how they wrote little notes on the napkins, a bit twee, but friendly. This time I got 'may the rest of your day be as nice as you seem to be'.

Another route to the coach stop took me through beautiful gardens, the Dome Church spire just visible here.

Church interiors were for concerts - including the first I've heard in said Dome Church on Toompea. The only rooms I hadn't seen were in the House of the Brotherhood of Blackheads - bachelor merchants who took black St Maurice as their saint when the Hanseatic League was established.

The White Hall, walls fanning out from the performance space, had perfect acoustics for the two-piano recital I heard (and loved) there,

but clearly the treasure is St Olaf's Guild Hall upstairs with its splendid vaulting. All was remodelled in the 1920s, but extremely well.

Unpleasant to think that after I'd left the horrible Helmes of EKRE, the far right party, hosted Marine Le Pen here, an act which did not go unprotested. Estonia's horrifying embrace of extremists, gaining seats in Parliament thanks to an opportunistic power-sharing deal, is a blot on the new democratic dream of a young nation. Let's hope it survives the shake up.

The Estonian Wolf Hall

Yes, I know, publishers love to jump on the latest sensation by finding counterparts, preferably wrapped in covers that mimic the original (I could hardly believe one recent book ripping off the very entertaining if perhaps disposable Swedish hit by Jonas Jonasson, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared). But I was grateful when Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow spawned a translation of Kerstin Ekman's Blackwater, which led to my reading a much greater novel of hers, The Book of Hours. And I'm mighty glad that the justified hullabaloo over Hilary Mantel's unfolding Tudor chronicle led to the long-overdue appearance in English of an Estonian classic: possibly its country's greatest work, if the well-read Kaupo Kikkas is to be trusted (and trust him I do).

I actually heard about this through my beloved blogpal Susan Scheid, who's been a champion of many young American-based musicians including the unquestionably worthwhile Lembit Beecher. She told me that Lembit's Estonian mother, Merike Lepasaar Beecher, had just translated the first volume of an historical three-parter by Jaan Kross (1920-2007). I looked it up, was fascinated and ordered the hardback, coincidentally published as it turns out by our friends in the enterprising MacLehose Press, on the spot. Now the second volume, published this year, is sitting waiting, and I'm postponing the pleasure for a while, knowing I'll have to wait at least another year for the final instalment.

Kross's masterpiece tells the story of Balthasar Russow (c.1536-1600), about whom something but not too much is known. To quote the translator's very helpful introduction,

Russow lived in old Livonia (the territory of present-day Estonia and Latvia). He is the author of a remarkable work: the Chronicle of the Province of Livonia, in which he recounts the history of Old Livonia from 1136 to 1583. Russow wrote the Chronicle during the Livonian Wars, which spanned the years from 1558 to 1585, and this 25-year period is its focus. Old Livonia was a battleground for warring powers, with Russia, Sweden, Denmark and Poland-Lithuania scheming and battling for domination of this small corner of northern Europe. It was a terrible, turbulent time...Central to Kross's narrative is the story of how Russow's Chronicle...came to be written....Kross has described it as 'the first classic of Estonian literature'.

As you can imagine, it takes an exceptional imagination to bring the past to life as if it were only yesterday. And through the character of Russow, as fascinating a figure as Mantel's Thomas Cromwell if not, of course, as powerful, everything lives and breathes. Like Cromwell, he has a divided consciousness, born the son of a coachman in a village outside Tallinn but going on to acquire an impressive education, and he moves between at least two worlds. We don't often get to see him through the eyes of others, but there's a nice, typical stream-of-consciousness summary from his German brother-in-law Meus:

What strange folk these peasants are, after all...even this one here...this big-boned, rough-hewn titan with his round head...When it comes to learning, he's second in Tallinn only to the academicians, and he can get the better of some of them in matters of concrete knowledge...a philosopher, in some ways, but still a stripling in others...the way he looks at you with those wide-open blue eyes, naive and all-knowing at the same time...and he exudes something - the devil-knows-what - something like the hot steam from the sauna stoves in this region, and he's prepared to work as a coachman for the rector in Marburg or as a proofreader or a ploughman...

Kross gives clever Bal a rooting in a country expedition where he outfaces wolves, sees an old tree-god and follows his Aunt Kati's instructions to help in the birthing of a calf by getting up on a stove and bellowing like a bull: 

His rational self smirked at all this, the witching made him anxious, and he worried about what Epp [the village girl who's taken his fancy] might think of his calving antics. And yet he also felt how the stove, made of stones dug out of the fields, was somehow humming along with him and with the cave-like house and the earth under the house. He would remember this moment all his life: of that he was certain even before the cow's plaintive lowing changed to a long clear moo-oo-oo. It seemed to be such a direct response to his bellow that it shocked him, for it appeared to prove that he had extended his hand over the gate and into the realm of witchcraft.

There are plenty of more extended set-pieces, starting with the pell-mell brilliance of the virtuosic first chapter, in which Bal climbs the high tower (still the highest in old Tallinn, as walks around it and indeed our wonderful summer meal over the bay revealed - see below) of St Olaf to join a group of Italian rope-walkers -  hence the title of the first volume, applied to the hero's own balancing act.

and an astonishingly evocative account of his night journey over the frozen Baltic to Finland to deliver a message to Crown Prince Johan of Sweden. As for Bal's character, it is often stripped bare - the world for the young man seems to consist of 'only two categories of people...There were those whom he envied - whether the envy was strong or vague, there was no denying it. And there were those whom he pitied - whether the pity was deep or superficial, there was no denying that, either'.

The historical circumstances of Kross's own life help to give the picture of the past incredible potency, too. He had suffered, like most of the Estonian intelligentsia, from the German and then the Soviet occupation of Estonia - arrested by the Nazis in 1944 as a promoter of independence, then imprisoned by the NKVD in 1946 and sent for eight years to the Vorkuta Gulag and to work in the Inta mines, two more to eke out his time as a deportee. He became a writer on returning to his homeland in 1954 because his early legal studies were null and void under the Soviets. 

Debating with his wife, the poet Ellen Niit, what could and could not be written in the 1960s, the time of the Khrushchev thaw, they drew two circles - one of what should be written, the other of what could be. The area of overlap still left them with quite a lot to write about. 'History would allow me to write obliquely of the present and play with paradox and ambiguity', evading the censors by doing half of their work himself. He tried, he said, to write about the 16th century, 'its intellectual atmosphere and conditions in a way that some kind of parallels with the present would shine through...though nothing too stark or obvious'. In this he succeeded magnificently, and reading this translation today, we find his vivid imagination untrammelled and in need of no apology

Around Estonian Music Days

As in, a chance to touch upon all those events and images I didn't get a chance to engage in my Arts Desk piece on a remarkable festival of new music. The first thing to emphasise here is the incredible level of music education in Estonia, which heading towards the country's centenary celebrations next year has launched a scheme called 'A Musical Instrument for Every Child'. Children and teenagers playing music are everywhere in Tallinn; the above image, which I caught one morning as I found myself walking through the old town in the opposite direction to young students of stringed instruments heading in the opposite direction. Random shot of gull here because I like the balance.

EMD has a 'junior' branch whose activities we tend to see little of since their 'Mini-EMD' is usually over by the time we reporters arrive for the main events. I'm rather glad I insisted, in the face of my colleagues' indifference, on a little tour of the town which promised music in various locations. I didn't know then that it was programmed by Mini-EMD students. Our guide was a charming teenager - alas, I don't remember the name - who made a good start by telling us a heck of a lot about the Estonian National Opera and Concert Hall which we didn't know (how, for instance, it was destroyed in the Second World War bombings and rebuilt very quickly). Led within the foyer, we found a young violinist,  Rita Iris Loonde, who played for us Heino Eller's Luurilne Laul.

A second violinist, Triinu Piirsalu, was prepared to play in her gloves outside the Musical Instrument Museum I'd visited that morning. She's going to have a fine career; watch below and you'll see what I mean. She played Kadents ja teema by Ester Mägi, 'First Lady of Estonian Music' and 95 this year.

Our last musician, Liisu Siimer, surprised us with the bagpipes (the Estonian mini-variety, so much more pleasant than the Scottish bruisers) by the statue of major Estonian composer Heino Eller.

That was some day. We'd just reeled off the bus from a blindfold magical mystery tour which I've described on The Arts Desk - read more about it there - as a bit of a life-changer. Namely having the confidence to be guided by invisible hands, to let go after a while of the tension which was sending my back into spasm and trust that I wouldn't fall or bash into things. And then to have an hour and a half to get used to this state while electronic sounds and then a beguiling new piece by Helena Tulve sounded all around us. Photographer Rene Jakobson caught us in the blind act and has allowed these pics to be used.

After the mini-tour there was a reception in the Maiden's Tower cafe. Superb food and excellent company, with a chance to talk to Erkki-Sven Tuur, whom I first met decades ago when he was going out with Katherine Howard and now the second in line of succession to Arvo Pärt as The Greatest on the Estonian music scene (photo - I think - by Peeter Langovits),

and to his fellow composer Helena Tulve, the genius behind the festival along with Timo Steiner, here seen in one of my own pics with her husband Jaan-Eick Tulve, conductor of the magnificent Vox Clamantis choir.

One of Helena's more numinous additions this year was a meditative sequence before the choral programme in the Niguliste Church/Museum with the sounds of crystal bowls wielded by herself and others (photo by Peeter Langovits).

It seemed rather providential that I'd never managed to see inside the Niguliste (St Nicholas) before. One of the few old buildings seriously damaged by bombs in the Second World War, it has long served as a 'museum of ecclesiastical art' from Soviet times onwards, and seems to have had a splendid overhaul in recent years. While its most celebrated treasure is the Dance of Death by the Lübeck master Bernt Notke, or rather a fragment of thirteen figures from it - I take the liberty of breaking the long picture-strip into two out of four panels -

the main altarpiece, depicting scenes from the lives of Saints Nicholas and Victor by the workshop of another Lübeck master, Hermen Rode, is perhaps even more impressive in that it stands where it was originally intended. And this was how we saw it at the first concert with Vox Clamantis in front of it.

A later visit by the Estonian Chamber Choir saw the seats turned from east- to west-facing, placing these singers in front of the seven-armed candelabra, also Lübeck work, presented to the church in 1519 (photo by Peeter Langovits).

Before that concert I had time to wander round, though sadly the silver chamber housing a splendid ruby-eyed popinjay was closed. Still, there was an interesting display within the nave of silver guild medallions, very like ex votos, and you could walk around the altarpieces.  These panels are from the high altar retable: Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbara flanking Virgin and Child

and the male saints Victor, Nicholas and George the Dragon-slayer.

Folded back here are the annunciation wings in grisaille of the Virgin Mary Altarpiece (1493) commissioned by the Brotherhood of Black Heads, whose guild hall with its splendid portal is nearby. To save the altarpiece from iconoclasm they took it to their base in 1524 and it remained there until 1943.

The Passion Altarpiece is from the workshop of Bruges master Adriaen Isenbrandt.

It's at the other end of the aisle from the octagonal Lutheran baptistery of the 1680s, the only one of its kind in Estonia and taken from the Swedish church of St Michael.

On the opposite wall is a life-sized sculpture of St Christopher (workshop of Tobias Heintze, 1624), originally a support for the pulpit otherwise destroyed in the March bombing of 1944.

Away from the main body of the church, this Cavalry Group is on the wall opposite to the Dance of Death in St Anthony's Chapel. The figures come from the small Harvu-Risti Church which served as a chapel of the Cistercian Monastery in Padise, and were actually created at different times in the late 14th (Christ) and early 15th (Virgin and St John) centuries.

On the official way out, you pass a splendid decorative screen designed for the Memorial Chapel of Bogislaus von Rosen in 1665.

As my guide deals only with the interior of the museum, it tells me nothing about this ?Romanesque? doorway in the south-west of the church.

The light that morning was especially lovely, lighting up the tower as you approach it down the historically rich

and this wall behind the Musical Museum,

which I finally got to see after three visits. Its fine displays deserve an entry to themselves, and there was a remarkable exhibition in the tower featuring musicians just sitting and looking at the camera in a series of portrait videos - unnervingly brilliant.

But other more-than-sweepings need commemoration. Some extra shots of our magical time at Arvo Pärt's summer retreat on the Lohusalu peninsula west of Tallinn, named after his first work following the long silence which gave birth to the so-called 'tintinnabulist' rebirth.

The notebooks from the interim period, when he set psalms almost obsessively without any intention of publication, may be facsimiles, but it was good to see them in the room where many of the jottings were made.

Below is our wonderful guide, Riin Eensalu, former EMD administrator and now the Arvo Pärt Centre's Head of Communications, holding one of the pots which Pärt painted as therapy during his creative block, and which his neighbours returned to him when he and his wife finally returned from Berlin.

And here's Riin again showing the long table on which Pärt composed many of his major works, brought from Berlin.

Around the visit, I've already written about our seaside stop in the entry 'Estonia's first spring flower', but this is an excuse to post another picture, of a typically welcoming sign

nicely mirrored by this lively note in the toilet of the charming cafe we visited at the end of the road to Aliina. The humour is typically Estonian.

Superb food here - the best pea soup I've ever tasted, and delicious cakes.

Even the local bus shelter is worth noting, part of a design competition for senior students at Estonian schools.

Finally, from my last day, a concert I ran out of space to include in the Arts Desk piece - a tribute 85-year-old composer Jan Rääts from pianist Nicolas Horvath and nine composers. Not much to write home about among the homagers, though Tuur's Salute managed to be quirky in a very short space of time. Rääts's whimsy, elliptical brevity and unpredictability are startling at best, though perhaps he recycled tricks rather readily. At any rate, Horvath certainly shot us bolt upright with the opener, Radio 4,and it was easy to see why the 1968 Toccata became such a cult piece after its inclusion to be played by all 86 competitors in the Fourth International Tchaikovsky Competition of 1970. Here are three professional shots by Peeter Langovits of pianist and composer.

The venue was last on a list of interesting places - I notched up many more this year, and this was no exception, the just-refurbished Studio One of Estonian National Broadcasting. Good, as usual, to see all the Estonian discs on sale as we entered

and here's a shot of the delightful and talented Liisa Hirsch discovering one of her works on a disc for sale at the Niguliste Church.

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Which allows me to return to the first concert on that sunny evening in early Spring at the same church, and a nice shot by Peeter Langovits of senior Estonian-based national treasure Galina Grigorjeva with Jaan-Eick Tulve and members of Vox Clamantis.

I bumped into the vivacious Else Torp and her husband Paul Hillier at the Glyndebourne premiere of Brett Dean's Hamlet on Sunday, and was able to tell them how much pleasure I'd got out of the Theatre of Voices' Grigorjeva CD, also recorded in the Niguliste Museum. Paul now has the score of the Vespers I heard premiered in April - he's not only more deserving but luckier than me, because the friendly Galina was very apologetic that she couldn't issue one when we met, having noticed some mistakes - and very much wants to perform it. In the meanwhile, terviseks (cheers) to my favourite conductor and friend Neeme Järvi on his 80th birthday, two days of celebrations of which took place in Tallinn last week. Time and costs didn't permit my going, but we meet again in Pärnu in August.