Emīls Dārziņš

Emīls Dārziņš, one of the most popular and most beloved Latvian composers, was born in 1875 to the family of teacher Andžs Dārziņš in Jaunpiebalga. Over the course of continual self-education, he was prepared for studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, in the organ class of Louis Homilius (1888). However, due to financial problems, Dārziņš was forced to leave the Conservatory in May 1901. The last nine years of his life Dārziņš spent in Riga. There the young musician, by means of his concert reviews, well-grounded criticism and idealistic philosophical essays, attempted to develop the society’s artistic taste. Working not only as a publicist, but also and as a private music teacher, he had little time left for composing. Only 17 a cappella choral songs and 19 solo songs, as well as one symphonic miniature – Melancholy Waltz, and an unfinished opera – The Rose Days, form his oeuvre. Emīls Dārziņš died tragically in a railway accident in 1910.

Musicologist Arnolds Klotiņš states: "Emīls Dārziņš is one of the most popular lyrical composers in Latvia, despite his few compositions. Almost all of his seventeen works for choir are still performed in Latvia and beyond its borders, as are his solo songs and his Melancholy Waltz for orchestra. (...) In his compositions he emphasizes the subjectively emotional world of his contemporaries, highlighting the human content of everyday life, expressing it with a supple melodic line, which he varies and develops to great effect. The power of a deeply emotional experience that is inherent in Dārziņš's choral music pervades the whole range of the subject matter and feelings expressed in his work – from subtle intimacy to dramatic passion and the pathos of social conflict."

(From "Anthology of Latvian Choral Music", vol. I)