Anti Marguste

b. August 5, 1931 Eavere village, Are parish, Pärnumaa
d. January 12, 2016
Member of the Estonian Composers' Union since 1960

Anti Marguste graduated from the faculty of Economics of the Tallinn Polytechnical Institute in 1953 and the Tallinn Conservatory in composition with Mart Saar and Anatoli Garshnek in 1960. From 1962 to 2001, Marguste taught music theory and Estonian folk music at the Tallinn Georg Ots Music School. He has also served as the head of the music section of the newspaper Sirp.

The oeuvre of Anti Marguste includes both large-scale and small-scale works. He has composed music for symphony orchestra (e. g. 6 symphonies), instrumental concertos, chamber music, solo songs, a lot of choral music and many more. Marguste’s works are mainly based on Estonian old folk song called regilaul. He has derived new development methods and emotional nuances from the laconic pattern of Estonian traditional music. In his music he frequently withdraws from clearly sensible tonality to striving chromatic. To achieve an interesting contrasts with timbre, Marguste often uses unusual instrumentation in his compositions (for example Concerto piccolo No. 6: natural trumpet, harpsichord, jazz drums).

Next to calm observation on life and irony, also humour can be found in his music. His works have original titles, like Oreleelo, Orelend and Oreloits (word games in Estonian). In his choral music Marguste pays great attention to the text – it is characterised by the precision in saying, pointillism and amplification through the music.

Anti Marguste’s works have been conducted by Roman Matsov, Eri Klas, Neeme Järvi, Paul Mägi and others. Several his choral songs have been performed at Estonian Song Celebrations and in addition to Estonian concert venues, reached on stages in Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy and elsewhere. Record company Antes has released two CD-s with Marguste’s music, his works have been published by Edition 49 and SP Muusikaprojekt.

Anti Marguste received the Estonian SSR annual prize for music in 1983 and annual prize of Estonian Cultural Endowment in 2012. In 2013, Marguste was ascribed the 3rd Class Order of the White Star. In 2015, he was acknowledged with the Estonian Music Council's Music Prize.

© EMIC 2009
Updated in February 2013

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