“Unrest to Heroism: The Journey of Latvia’s Iconic Song ‘The Mountains of Latvia are Blue Forever'”

“The mountains of Latvia are blue forever” was composed by Emīla Dārziņa in 1909 the chapel song for men’s choir. This song was premiered and published while the composer was still alive. It is one of seventeen known choral songs by the composer.

As the basis of the song’s text, Dārziņš has chosen the poetry of the then 26-year-old Kārļis Skalbes, which was created under the influence of the 1905 revolution, after which the poet himself was forced to emigrate, and the poem entitled “Unrest” was published in the collection “Zemes dūmos”. When composing the song, Emīls Dārziņš transformed the poem, also changed the title to “Mūžam zili ir Latvijas kalni”, reduced its association with the defeat of the revolution, muted the harshness and rebelliousness of Skalbe’s words, turning it into a message of people’s suffering, strength and heroism. For example, for Skalbem, “a trumpet is crying over the mountains of Latvia”, for Dārziņa, “kokle” is crying, where for Skalbem, “our sacrificial vessels have been smashed”, in the song we hear “ancestral sacrificial vessels.” Due to these changes, it is correct to say – “text after Kārļas Skalba”.

Both Skalbe and Dārziņš are from Piebalga, where the landscape is hilly, the relief gives the mood of the blue faraway, when you delve into the text you get the feeling of a summer day after rain, when the air smells, the forest is shrouded in blue mist in the distance.

This song was performed for the first time at the VI General Latvian Song Festival in 1926, under the direction of Teodors Reiter. Truth or legend, but there is a version that in the fall of 1944, when the sounding of Latvian Radio was restored after the war, Jānis Ivanovs was the first to play the song “Mūžam zili ir Latvijas kalni” by Emīl Dārziņš and Kārļis Skalbes on the radio, immediately after prohibited. After a 40-year break, during the Soviet occupation, it was played for the only time in 1973, marking the centenary of the Song Festival. This year, the choir of the song festival will sing it for the seventh time and it will be conducted by Jēkabs Ozoliņš from Liepāja.

“My first encounter with this song was with the conductor Leonid Vīgner in the Latvian teachers’ choir,” says Ozoliņš. “It was the time of the Soviet occupation, Wigner transferred this song to the mixed choir. We called the song “Unrest” then, and Wigner also made us sing “taure” instead of the word “kokle”, as Skalbem originally did. have sung, it is in our repertoire. The last time I met this song was last year in Tukum at the Festival of Songs, when the song’s original a cappella men’s choir sang in the performance. I am grateful that the organizers of the song festival entrusted me to conduct this song this summer, it is a strong and powerful song!

I always talk about the song with the choir and the men understand what this story is about – UNREST, it’s not always sunny days and there is also unrest in the world right now, we have something to say and something to stand for.”

During the holidays, the song was conducted by Imants Kokars, Haralds Mednis, Roberts Zuika, Ivars Cinkuss, Roberts Liepiņš, during the period of independence it was played every ten years – in 2003, 2013, and now it will be played again in 2023.

Conductor Jēkabs Ozoliņš joined the family of festival choir conductors 30 years ago. The conductor is thinking about whether it would be time to give the song the original Skalbe’s poetry, but at least the name proposed by him will be as Dārziņš intended.

“Dārziņš has transformed the poem, changing its thematic sense as well – the restlessly resigned mood of Latvian nature is not specifically associated with the victims of the revolution of that time, but with general ideas about the people’s suffering and heroism in the distant past,” says Jēkabs Ozoliņš. “All the changes Dārziņš made in Skalbe’s poetry were due to censorship, out of the 50 words in the poem, the composer changed seven in order to publish and sing the song. Once Imants Ziedonis also said – “if we have to pay to sing, then we will pay” , certain fees had to be paid to the Soviet government. There is also no information that the poet objected to the arbitrary transformation of the poem. The song was already sung during the Soviet occupation, choirs sang it, but the government did not allow writing the full title, where Latvia is capitalized, so only two were left the words in the title “Mūžam zili”, otherwise it should be written “Mūžam zili ir kalni Latvian SSR”, absurd… At that time, the song was also interpreted more as a romantic men’s choir song that captivated Latvia. However, when Haralds Mednis conducted this song in 1990, it was already again sounded firm, unromantic, with a feeling of a strong Latvia. I suggested, while preparing for the XXVII General Latvian Song Festival, that we can return to the original title of Dārziņš and also say that the text is by Kārļis Skalbes, at least for the song we have returned it. Dārziņš always sings a song at the festival, if not this song, then there is another one, I am very happy about it. Emīls Dārziņš wrote his best choral songs in the last years of his life, and also this one.”

Conductor Aira Birziņa considers this men’s choir song to be one of the most beautiful Latvian choir songs: “I remember the moment when I was in Skalbe’s “Saulrietos”, when I step on the balcony, there is a wonderful view – a grove of trees, a road, a beautiful landscape of Vidzeme and in the distance is the blue forest and the impression of mountains. The sky merges with the horizon and a blue-blue feeling of distant mountains is formed. Dārziņš also saw it and put it into the melody. It is a song with which we can learn to express such more personal feelings through music, but the content is objective, which can be sung not only about Latvia, but also to generalize.

Through the harmonies of Dārziņš, the romantic handwritten song gives birth to such a feeling of strong men, it seems to me that every chorister’s back and shoulders straighten when he sings this.

While singing the middle part, they each become so powerful, big, strong, beautiful! At the beginning and end of the song, we can see the landscape of Latvia in such a short, compact form of the song. The harmony of music and text is very close and beautiful! By changing the text, Dārziņš has achieved a breadth of thought and meaning, without concretizing the revolution of 2005, we are thinking about the fate of nations in general. In my opinion, knowing our history already after Dārziņš and Skalba, this text change has brought several new aspects to the content of the song.”

Conductor Leonids Vīgners once said in an interview on Latvija Radio that “The mountains of Latvia are blue forever” is not the most complicated male choir song, but certainly one of the most beautiful.

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