Cyrillus Kreek (born Karl Ustav Kreek; in Võnnu,

Lääne county Lääne County ( or ''Läänemaa'', literally "Western land"; ; ) is one of the 15 counties of Estonia. It is located in western Estonia and borders the Baltic Sea to the north, Harju County to the north-east, Rapla County to the east, Pärnu Cou ...

– 26 March 1962 in

Haapsalu Haapsalu () is a seaside resort town located on the west coast of Estonia. It is the administrative centre of Lääne County, and on 1 January 2020 it had a population of 9,375. History The name ''Haapsalu'' derives from the Estonian words ' ...

) was an

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

n composer.Strimple, Nick (2002
''Choral music in the twentieth century''
p. 164. Hal Leonard Corporation. . Kreek studied

trombone The trombone (, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the Standing wave, air c ...

and

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

at the

Saint Petersburg Conservatory The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory () (formerly known as the Petrograd Conservatory and Leningrad Conservatory) is a school of music in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 faculty member ...

from 1908 to 1916 in the years immediately prior to the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, then worked as music teacher first in his native

(in western Estonia), at the Tartu Music College and later at the Tallinn Conservatory. Kreek started collecting religious folksongs in 1911 in the Haapsalu region. He systematically collected the folk music of his native country, and many of his folk melody arrangements have since become part of the permanent repertoire of Estonian choral societies. He was the first Estonian collector to use the phonograph for this purpose and the harmonisations he made became a lifelong preoccupation. His beautiful psalm settings have an unmistakable folk tinge, and yet they are much more than simple folksong arrangements, with their carefully graded choral colouring and passing use of imitation. Kreek's magnum opus was his Requiem, using an Estonian translation of the text of Mozart's Requiem, but his essence is perfectly expressed in these choral miniatures. Cyrillus Kreek also achieved renown as an instrumental composer with his Musica sacra, a Humoreske for orchestra, and a Suite for zithers and orchestra.

Compositions

*Reekviem (1927) *Musica sacra (for orchestra, 1943) *Armastuslaul 13. sajandist (for orchestra, 1943) *Kalevipoeg nõiakoopas (cantata, 1953) *Setu sümfoonia (for orchestra, 1953)

References

1889 births 1962 deaths People from Haapsalu People from Kreis Wiek Estonian folklorists Estonian male classical composers 20th-century Estonian classical composers Estonian folk-song collectors 20th-century Estonian composers 20th-century Estonian male musicians Saint Petersburg Conservatory alumni Honoured Workers of the Arts Industry of the Estonian SSR Recipients of the Order of the Estonian Red Cross {{Estonia-composer-stub