Here's my obituary of Lepo Sumera, written for The Independent.  It was
checked by his widow, so it should be reasonably accurate.

Lepo Sumera was one of the main energisers of music in Estonia; his
death leaves the country in a state of shock.  Madis Kolk, another of the
movers of Estonian musical life, described him as "one of the most vital
men around here ever".  Sumera had celebrated his fiftieth birthday, in the
whirl of activity that always surrounded him, only four weeks beforehand.
One friend, indeed, believes the celebrations may, quite literally, have
been the death of him:  his Sixth Symphony was premiered in a birthday
concert on 6 May, with his Concerto grosso being given its first
performance on 29 April, and Sumera had committed every waking hour to
getting the scores ready in time.  Sumera's heart had given cause for worry
a few years beforehand, and it seems simply to have been too much:  he was
felled by a massive heart attack on 1 June and died a day later.  But one
can no more imagine Sumera taking life easy than visualise Estonian music
without him.

As a teenager Sumera studied first with the outstanding choral composer
Veljo Tormis (now, like Arvo Part, a man with an international reputation
of his own) before moving on to Tallinn Conservatoire, to become the last
student of Heino Eller --- a central figure in twentieth-century Estonian
music, not only as its most important composer but also as the teacher of
virtually every Estonian composer of merit.  At Eller's death in 1970 (he
was then 83), Sumera continued his lessons with Heino Jurisalu, graduating
in 1973; his post-graduate studies were undertaken at Moscow Conservatoire.

Sumera's first job was as a recording director at Estonian Radio, from 1971
to 1980, the last two years overlapping with the teaching career that was
to make him almost as influential a figure as Eller:  many of the current
younger generation of Estonian composers passed through Sumera's hands, and
his reputation also drew in students from further afield.  Erkki-Sven Tuur,
the best known of his students, delivered the oration at his funeral.
Sumera taught at the Music College at Karlsruhe, too, and on summer courses
at Darmstadt, the Mecca and Medina of contemporary music.  And as Minister
of Culture from 1988 until 1992, Sumera was an important political figure
as Estonia wrested its independence back from the collapsing Soviet Union.
He then served as the chairman of the Estonian Composers' Union until his
death.

Sumera's music evolved through a variety of styles.  In the 1970s his works
freely applied dodecaphonic techniques and collage.  In 1981, the first of
his series of symphonies (Nos.  1---5 all recorded by the Swedish label
BIS) grew out of a piano piece requested by his wife, the pianist Kersti
Einasto, and with it Sumera began his own contribution to the particularly
Estonian symphonic tradition that blends mysticism with minimalist method.
In spite of superficial stylistic similarities, that characteristically
Estonian sound arose independently of any American influence:  its
wellspring is ancient Estonian folksong, regilaul or runo song, which
uses repetition of small melodic and rhythmic units for its effect.

Sumera's mastery of instrumental colour was already evident in 1972, in
his first orchestral score, In Memoriam, dedicated to the memory of Heino
Eller.  His later adoption of the modal harmony and melodic lines ---
inspired, in part, by regilaul ---combined with his acute awareness of
sound-colour to impart a timeless quality to much of his music:  it often
seems to shimmer, to hover weightlessly in some vast space.  Yet it is also
capable of surges of primal energy and force, as witness the pile-driving
toccata that forms the fourth movement of his Fourth Symphony.  His music
is beginning to command an international audience:  it has been performed
in locations as dispersed as North America, Cuba, Australia and continental
Europe --- though it has yet to be given a fair hearing in Britain.

Everything Sumera did was hallmarked by his unquenchable intellectual
curiosity.  He was the first composer in Estonia systematically to use
a computer in his composition, and he founded, and for many years headed,
the Electronic Music Studio at the Estonian Academy of Music.  He soon
brought electro-acoustic elements into his music, often using live
electronics, and his appetite for novelty quickly led him to multi-media
works.  The 1997 chamber opera Olivia's Master Class (to a libretto by
Peeter Jakalas after a novel by Ervin Ounapuu) involves video footage of
paintings by Caspar David Friedrich (a character in the opera); and his
Heart Affairs (1999) uses material generated entirely by the human heart,
the sounds electronically treated by Sumera in performance and the images
derived from echocardiography --- Sumera insouciantly using those from the
medical examination of his own heart.

Sumera's relentless energy guaranteed an extensive list of works.
Besides the six symphonies, there are four large-scale cantatas, concertos
for piano and for cello, many other orchestral works, chamber music, piano
pieces and over fifty film scores.  Quite where he found the time is
unclear:  he also seemed omnipresent as an organiser and administrator,
and was a generous host, always ready to help his guests relax with a laugh
and a drink.  Though Sumera's life spanned a mere half-century, as neatly
as that of the Czech composer Zdenek Fibich exactly one hundred years
before him, he squeezed every drop out of it.

Lepo Sumera, composer, teacher and musical activitist, born Tallinn, 8 May
1950, married 1972 Kersti Einasto (2 daughters, 1 son) died Tallinn, 2 June
2000.

Martin Anderson
Toccata Press
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www.drakeint.co.uk/toccata-press