Aleksander Kunileid

Aleksander Kunileid (born Aleksander Saebelmann; 22 November 1845 – 27 July 1875), was an Estonian composer. He is one of the founding figures of Estonian choral music. Life and work Aleksander Peeter Karl Saebelmann (or Säbelmann) was born in 1845 in Audru in the district of Pärnu, the son of a teacher. Like his brother, Friedrich August Saebelmann, he displayed musical gifts from an early age. His first musical education was with his father, from whom he learned to play the organ and the piano. As a 16-year-old, Saebelmann attended the Vidzeme teacher’s seminary in Valka (the Latvian town of Valka lies alongside its Estonian twin, Valga), where he studied with the choral master Jānis Cimze. Saebelmann graduated from the teacher’s seminary in 1865 and took up a teaching post in the small village of Paistu for three years. There he frequently played the organ in the local church. He befriended prominent figures from the Estonian national awakening, including Carl Robert Jakobson, Johann Voldemar Jannsen, and the latter’s daughter, Lydia Koidula. He took the name “Kunileid”, in preference to the Germanic-seeming “Saebelmann”, from Jakobson’s motto Otsi, kuni leiad (“Seek, until you