Cyrillus Kreek, composer of Estonian Swedes

There is a memorial to the composer Cyrillus Kreek on the banks of Lake Väike Viik on Holmidepealne. The monument was created by sculptor Aime Kuulbusch and installed in front of the composer’s former home at Väike-Viigi 10 in 2008. It was the composer and his family’s last home between 1939 and 1962, and is where most of his work was created. Kreek had an important role in the musical life of the Estonian Swedes in the first half of the 20th century. 

Kreek was born in 1889 in Saanika, near Haapsalu, and came into contact with Estonian Swedes at an early age. When the future composer was 7 years old, the family moved to the island of Vormsi, where his father got a teaching position at an Orthodox school. On Vormsi, Kreek also came into contact with the Swedish language for the first time. A few years later, the future composer came to Haapsalu to study.

Kreek became more closely involved with the Estonian Swedes after 1918, when he married his first wife, the Estonian Swede Maria Blees, in Haapsalu. Kreek took to reading a number of books in Swedish in a bid to learn more about his spouse’s mother tongue and culture.

In his youth, Kreek took part in an expedition organised by the Estonian Students Society to collect folk songs, starting his life-long love for folk music. He went on collecting expeditions himself and wrote down songs from his pupils. Kreek was also the first professional composer to take an interest in the musical heritage of Estonian Swedes, especially their traditional chorales. In 1921, he and his wife went to Noarootsi to collect folk songs. In total, Kreek collected 126 tunes sung by Estonian Swedes, 102 of which were folk chorales.

Kreek did not confine himself to collecting the song heritage of the Estonian Swedes, also taking up the position of a music teacher in the 1930s at the Swedish Upper Secondary Private School in Haapsalu. He also promoted the choir movement among the Estonian Swedes, which culminated in the organisation of the first Song Festival of the Estonian Swedes in Haapsalu in 1933.

After his studies at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory (1908-1916), he returned to Estonia and became a music teacher, first at the Rakvere Teachers’ Seminary and at the Tartu Higher Music School, and then in Haapsalu from 1921, where he remained for the rest of his life. In Haapsalu, Kreek continued to work as a music teacher at the Läänemaa Teachers’ Seminary, the Läänemaa Joint Upper Secondary School and the Swedish Upper Secondary Private School, and at the Haapsalu Teachers’ Seminary after World War II. His second wife, Aleksandra Tinskij, was a student of his at the Läänemaa Teachers’ Seminary. Former pupils have recalled that Kreek had no problems asserting himself at school. 

Kreek did not limit himself to teaching, but was actively involved in the musical life of Haapsalu – he founded the mixed choir Heli and the men’s singing society, directed local choirs and county song festivals, and organised local concerts. Known for his good sense of humour and love of jokes and puns, Kreek was always a welcome guest at social gatherings. 

Kreek composed a lot of religious music. This was probably one of the reasons why he was forced to leave the Tallinn Conservatory in 1950 after teaching theoretical subjects in 1940-41 and 1944-1950.  Kreek’s peak composing period was the 1920s and 1930s, when he wrote his magnum opus ‘Requiem’. Kreek was not a popular composer during his lifetime because his works were very demanding. He did not offer his compositions to local choirs, probably due to the sheer complexity of the pieces. 

The music school in Haapsalu bears the name of Cyrillus Kreek since 2014.

2014. Kreek was involved in a number of initiatives by Estonian Swedes. In 1933, the first Swedish Song Festival was held in Haapsalu, attended by ten choirs made up of 200 Estonian Swedish singers. Cyrillus Kreek was the general manager of the festival. For the Song Festival he arranged an old chorale for the mixed choir, ‘Den signade dag’ (‘This blessed day’) (Laanepõld 1974: 27). Kreek had written it down from 82-year-old Mats Fagerlund in the village of Bergsby in Riguldi municipality in the parish of Noarootsi (ERA III 4, 341/3 (41); see also photo 5). At the end of the 1930s, Kreek also worked for a short time as a music teacher at the Swedish Upper Secondary Private School in Haapsalu (Laanepõld 1974: 27).