The Deep Connection of Elis Hallik’s Music to the World
Elis Hallik: The First Estonian Composer Published by Schott
SAALE KAREDA
Music provides a unique way to explore and perceive reality. Since visible reality emanates from the invisible—creation precedes what is experienced through the five senses in this seemingly solid world—music serves as a bridge between the metaphysical and physical worlds. According to ether physics, solid matter consists of higher-level etheric vortices, tightly intertwined as standing scalar waves originating from magnetic currents.1 Simply put, the reality we experience is composed of energy waves across many levels and layers, and music as a medium of sound waves is a powerful laboratory for exploring the infinite possibilities of life. In ancient traditions and religions, the world was created through sound or word (the latter also being a manifestation of sound). In Estonian traditional regilaul (runic song), the world was consciously (re)created. How is the world (re)created through sound or music in the 21st century?
Photo: Krõõt Tarkmeel
Estonian contemporary music is blessed with many talented composers who convey insights into the nature of the world through their auditory sense and visions. Among the most prominent composers of Estonia’s younger generation, Elis Hallik has reached two significant international milestones. Last autumn, her first album was released under the renowned Austrian label Kairos, a remarkable event. In addition to presenting contemporary music classics, the label focuses on Austrian contemporary music, selecting international composers with great care.
In July, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious music publishers, Schott Music, announced it would start publishing Elis Hallik’s works. A pre-announcement sent to orchestras and festivals noted:
“The Estonian composer has made a name for herself in Europe with her individual style and will bring a new colour to the Schott catalogue. In her compositions, Hallik is interested in being conscious in the present moment. She deals with silence and noise in their various facets, micro-events in sounds and musical processes. These offer the opportunity to reflect on the existence that surrounds us and its patterns. Frequently recurring themes are nature, the environment, climate change and archetypal forms of life. In his search for different structures and harmonies, Hallik tries to make cyclical breathing and inner peace tangible. […] We look forward to working with this fascinating composer.”
Founded in 1770, Schott is the second-oldest music publisher in Europe and represents the works of major figures such as Richard Wagner, Igor Stravinsky, György Ligeti, Toshio Hosokawa, Pēteris Vasks, Chaya Czernowin, and others.
In Elis Hallik’s music, structural, mathematical, and theoretical thinking are well-balanced with intuitive creativity, sensitive poetic expression, and a spirit deeply attuned to the currents of life, seeking wholeness.
This balance is particularly necessary in today’s turbulent era of great change, resonating with listeners around the world. Elis Hallik is the first Estonian composer to be published by Schott, and one of the few younger-generation female composers to join the ranks of this distinguished and long-standing publishing house.
Hallik studied composition at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre under the guidance of Helena Tulve and Toivo Tulev, earning her master’s degree in 2015, and further refined her skills in Lyon and through masterclasses with prominent composers. She discovered her distinctive style during her studies. In 2014, Hallik achieved her first international recognition in Vienna with the work Impacts. The accompanying commission, To Become a Tree (2016), has brought her further international acclaim, including success at the 2017 International Rostrum of Composers. That same year, she was selected as one of ten composers whose orchestral work Fluchtpunkt was performed by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under the baton of Pierre-André Valade at IRCAM’s festival ManiFeste.
In the autumn of 2023, Elis Hallik’s author album Born in Waves received widespread attention both in Estonian media and internationally. The album, released under the auspices of the Kairos label, brings together nine chamber works (ensembles and chamber orchestras) created over the past decade, totaling nearly 80 minutes of music. Hallik’s symphonic works are expected to follow, forming another full-length album. As a cohesive collection of works, Born in Waves is powerfully intense, showcasing the multifaceted nature of her compositions. The works on this album highlight the Nordic clarity and raw honesty of Hallik’s music, as well as its depth and concentrated energy.
The nine pieces on the album are arranged in a way that juxtaposes diverse works, creating a unified and flowing sonic journey. Despite the album’s overall length, its intensity never diminishes, as contrasting soundscapes alternate like the ebbs and flows of life—its victories and losses, celebrations and mourning, beauty and pain. Hallik’s musical language, regardless of the density of the texture, is transparent, precise, and crystal-clear, as if meticulously refined. Her focus is on the essence of sound in its infinite forms of expression—timbre as both an inspiration and building material, and the potential embedded in musical processes.
Delving into Hallik’s music, one perceives a silvery thread connecting even the smallest details to the whole, demonstrating coherence on both micro and macro levels. Her music often intertwines strength, impulsiveness, and elemental forces with fragility, tenderness, and extreme sensitivity. This is evident in works like Stoicheia (Elements) for two violins and string orchestra (2015), the album’s opening piece Some Paths Will Always Lead Through the Shadows for ensemble (2021), the title track Born in Waves for eight instruments (2021), and Like a Swan for ensemble (2022), among others. The playful and vital aspect of life is represented on the album by Impacts for cello and double bass, Hallik’s first internationally recognized work. The journey concludes with Above (2022), the earliest and latest piece on the album, based on a 16-bar fragment from her student days.
This experimental, contemplative work with an open instrumentation for up to six voices, created as part of the U: Residency, allows the listener to focus on a shift in perception as timbral combinations evolve.
At this point, I must note that a significant work from Hallik’s earlier output, revealing fascinating and mystical soundscapes—To Silent Life, to Wavering Light for saxophone and two percussionists (2015)—is not included on the album. Equally inspiring is Tuning the Iron (2012), a work with a captivating sound world for pre-recorded and processed material presented through four loudspeakers. This piece, last performed in 2023 at the Afekt Festival and during an ERSO Audiospa concert, was created in collaboration with the Estonian Academy of Arts’ Jewelry and Blacksmithing Department under the guidance of Kadri Mälk. It explores various aspects of ritual, portraying it as a significant means of connecting the real and the imagined, the visible and the invisible. The main themes are ritual and the moment of presence, where ritual serves as a tool for purification and transformation. In Tuning the Iron, fragile sonic elements are distilled into a new level through a process of purification, allowing the listener to witness an alchemical transformation. The piece is sonically designed as a magical, consciousness-expanding journey. The title evokes an image of bringing forth a counterpart—the divine feminine—paraphrasing Tormis’s ritualistic work Curse Upon Iron.
“The composer herself notes that her works usually originate from abstract sonic images, and she is primarily interested in their musical development, gradual transformation, and ability to evolve. Only through the transformation and maturation of the material does a second, more intuitive level emerge—visual or poetic associations that may in turn shape the overall work,” writes Kristina Kõrver in the album’s detailed liner notes.
The booklet also quotes a thought expressed by the composer for the first time in her 2017 theoretical article in Muusika magazine:
“Paradoxically, the more the process of creating music is connected to music itself and its inherent reality, the more it allows for the reflection of surrounding existence and its patterns through understanding.”
The uniqueness of Hallik’s musical processes and their connection to the experiential currents of life creates a soulful contact, where deeper realizations can emerge. Rising above the old and narrow, ego-driven dualistic paradigm, learning to recognize and integrate one’s Shadow (as defined by Jung’s archetype)—a challenge for everyone in today’s world—requires catalysts and activators. Music plays a significant role in this individuation process, as it is a direct medium of creation with the ability to connect to the depths of the soul. Many pieces on Hallik’s Born in Waves album can be seen as expressions of profound individuation processes and simultaneously as supporters of these processes.
Although dividing composers into female and male categories may seem anachronistic, I would like to draw attention to one aspect, especially in Estonia. Throughout centuries, the cultural identity of the Estonian people has been largely preserved through regilaul, transmitted predominantly by women. In today’s world, where ecosystems and biodiversity are under severe threat, we see an intriguing analogy in contemporary music. Since Helena Tulve began teaching composition, there has been an explosion of talented female composers in Estonian contemporary music. Many of these composers carry and express in their works a shared responsibility for our environment and the changes in our nature, reflecting a perspective rooted in deep ecology (a concept introduced by Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss in 1972).
A woman, as a bearer of life, has an innate connection with creation and nature through the heart. Creative impulses stemming from the biotic crisis have inspired Elis Hallik’s profoundly moving and structurally original work To Become a Tree, which utilizes various extended techniques. Since being selected among the ten recommended works at the International Rostrum of Composers, it has been performed by numerous renowned contemporary music ensembles across Europe and America, including Ensemble Fractales, Lisbon Ensemble, Ensemble Mosaik, Ensemble U:, der/gelbe/klang, Broken Frames Syndicate, Zagros Ensemble, and others.
Elis Hallik’s catalog of works for symphony orchestra currently includes five pieces, with more in progress. Her earliest orchestral work, En passant par la vallée (Passing Through the Valley), composed in 2012, is a ten-minute piece of remarkable orchestral scope, marked by intense emotion and a unique sound world. In 2017, she wrote Fluchtpunkt (Vanishing Point) for double orchestra and Punctum concursūs in prospectu (Vanishing Point in the Field of Vision) for quadruple orchestra.
In 2018, Hallik composed the overture Aegis to mark the centenary of the Republic of Estonia. This piece is now the first orchestral score available through Schott’s catalog. Aegis will be performed again under Kristiina Poska’s baton with ERSO on September 27, followed by performances by the Montpellier Occitanie National Opera Orchestra and the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra in the new year. In 2021, Hallik created The Firehearted, a brilliantly masterful and vividly colorful orchestral piece commissioned by Olari Elts and ERSO in honor of Beethoven’s 250th birthday. ERSO has recorded this work under the direction of Neeme Järvi for the album Great Maestros XX. Scroll Over Beethoven (2023).
Recently completed, Hallik’s half-hour symphony Phos will also soon join Schott’s catalog. The world premiere of the work will take place at the Afekt Festival on November 1, performed by ERSO under the direction of Clement Power. The Greek word phos refers to the essence of both physical and metaphorical light. The symphony carries a profound message, interpreting the theme of All Souls’ Day through light and sound.
“The symphony, as the largest form of musical thought in orchestral music, has historically enabled deep existential reflection. For me, it offered an opportunity to delve into larger musical processes,” the composer explains.
“The initial inspiration several years ago came from the cosmic phenomenon known as the ‘Pillars of Creation’—a massive star-forming region in the Eagle Nebula, where dense clouds of gas and dust give rise to new stars. I liked the idea of a place where stars (light) are born. The writing process was so long that I often forgot these extra-musical impulses. Ultimately, the meaning of the work transformed into a collection of values.”
By next summer, Hallik is set to complete two new orchestral works—one commissioned by the Pärnu Music Festival for the Estonian Festival Orchestra and Paavo Järvi, and another for the Festival Glasperlenspiel. Additionally, an ensemble piece has been commissioned by the early music ensemble Floridante. Starting this autumn, all of Hallik’s new works will be published under Schott, with earlier works gradually added as capacity allows. The publishing agreement was signed on August 21.
Looking at Hallik’s creative biography spanning nearly 15 years, one notices the captivating diversity of performance ensembles, musical processes, developmental arcs, sound possibilities, and the initial impulses of her works. During her earlier period, focused mainly on chamber music, Hallik produced compositions for smaller ensembles that immediately garnered international attention, including her first fully developed and poetically unique orchestral work En passant par la vallée (Passing Through the Valley), completed in 2012 as part of her undergraduate studies. Starting in 2017, she received opportunities to create additional symphonic works, and her collaboration with Schott is sure to further accelerate this momentum.
In this article, I have primarily focused on her earlier chamber music-centric period; I intend to explore Hallik’s symphonic works in greater detail in the future.
Listening to Hallik’s music, one is inspired by the composer’s pure thirst for truth—a desire to delve deeply into understanding and interpreting existence through a highly intellectual yet emotionally intense creative process. In uncovering increasingly profound layers of creative force within oneself, one must confront apparent obstacles, and by consciously working through them, new realizations and horizons open up. This process could be likened to deep-sea diving: the deeper one ventures, the more determination and wisdom are required to continue, as the pressure increases.
One holistic approach, rooted in harmonical Pythagoreanism, posits that nature, human psychophysical disposition, and music share identical laws. In other words, the harmony of the world corresponds to the acoustical-musical principles of harmony that humans can perceive through their sense of hearing. Simply put, the harmonic way of thinking is based on the understanding that many patterns in music reflect universal principles, which can be expressed through numbers and proportions. Throughout history, composers have sought to express these principles in their music, either consciously or intuitively. Observing Hallik’s creative journey, one perceives her uncompromising pursuit of reviving this deep connection—the harmony of the world—through her uniquely individual codes.
1 Gabi Müller, Wirbelwelten. Teil I: Leben im Äther. – raum&zeit 2007 nr 146, lk 94.
2 Elis Vesik, Aja tajumisest muusikas. Elis Vesiku „Kadumispunkt nägemisväljal“. – Muusika 2017 nr 11.
The original article comes from: Sirp