''Incantatio maris aestuosi'' ("Incantation for a Stormy Sea") is an ''

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

'' choral composition by the Estonian composer

Veljo Tormis Veljo Tormis (7 August 1930 – 21 January 2017) was an Estonian composer, regarded as one of the great contemporary choral composers and one of the most important composers of the 20th century in Estonia.Daitz, Mimi. Ancient Song Recovered: The ...

completed in 1996. The piece was commissioned by the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

Orphei Drängar and Finnish

YL Male Voice Choir YL Male Voice Choir (formerly: Helsinki University Chorus; fi, Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat) was founded by P. J. Hannikainen in 1883 to become the choir of the Helsinki University. It is also the oldest Finnish-language choir. Nowadays the choir is ...

male choirs in remembrance of the victims of the ferry that sank on September 29, 1994. The piece is about six minutes in length.

Text

The text of the piece is from the 18th and 42nd songs of the Finnish

national epic A national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation—not necessarily a nation state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group with as ...

Kalevala. The Latin translation of Kalevala from 1986 by Tuomo Pekkanen is used. Latin was chosen as the commissioning choirs conditioned that the choirs' native languages Finnish and

should not be used.

Recordings

* YL Male Voice Choir on ''Best of Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat'' (2008) * Cantus on ''There Lies the Home'' (2006) * The Vocal Consort on "Incantations" (2012)

References

MS Estonia Choral compositions 1996 compositions {{Classical-composition-stub