What land is this?

“What land is this / there is not single mountain / only forests, cut down, and boggy meadows / But the people here are awestruck / and strange are the lines of their song.” The first verse of a song Siiri Sisask wrote and performed in 1998, the tenth anniversary of the start of the Singing Revolution that heralded Estonia’s reindependence in 1991. I travel to northern Estonia, to a remote outdoor concert ground in fine weather, to see and hear a diva, and expecting to hear Mis maa see on in person.

The sun sinks behind a stand of Baltic pines as Sisask runs through her varied repertoire. She is 28 years older now, as am I and everyone else occupying rows of benches and sitting on the grass, listening in respectful silence, and waiting for one of Estonia’s best-known songs.

Her keyboard sounds a chanting rhythm, and her voice utters shamanic calls from a raised stage in front of backlit pines. For many listeners, this departure from the ordinary may be an acquired taste. A mother pushes a toddler on a tree swing, and little boys run around the stage.

One song compares a wolf to a cold wind, and another sings of the wind blowing into the tops of spruce trees, a coming into the inside of autumn. A third honours the memory of Uko Masing, an Estonian theologian, philosopher and speaker of 17 languages - singing of the trap of civilisation. In introducing it, Sisask makes a word play of Masing and masin, the Estonian word for machine.

There is a sort of New Age vibe about the concert setting. In between songs, Sisask shares stories of her singing life and times: a French admirer speaks to her with one word, bonjour, and nothing more; in Berlin she is asked to sing in German, and somewhere else an Estonian version of Bésame mucho. It feels like faded glory, and 250 people have turned up to celebrate it.

To me her music sounds best in Estonian, which she speaks and sings clearly – I understand more than I usually do, although much still sounds like the crackling of a birch log fire, or the lapping of waves against a boat, or the wind in the trees. In one song, Sisask sings of the Estonian landscape of boglands and lakes, and the language seems to go with it.

When not writing and performing, Sisask supports a charity for disadvantaged children and their families, was a one-term MP (2003-2007), and joined a conservative political party in 2018, speaking on various issues including the environment, though nothing seems to have come of this tilt at returning to Parliament.

Glowing deep orange, the sun creeps ever lower through the pines, and the time has come. I am about to make a request, and then an intro of 24 bars or so starts, and the song she sang in front of a choir of thousands at a laulupidu or song festival in Tallinn takes wing, and almost too soon, it is over. A standing ovation, and Siiri Sisask exits stage left, and I join the throng to find our cars and drive into gathering twilight in search of a tent site, the encore sounding in my mind.

What land is this / Is it really only slavery / that is good for people here? / Who can gather this pain once and for all / so that love comes, and suffering ends?

The song is a reminder of the importance of freedom, I think to myself, driving south amid fields of grain in golden light. A long-eared owl sits on a power line in silhouette, and I shoot underneath.