Eduard Tubin (TM F 159:7).

6 K A Hermanni Street (Photo: Robert Varik)

A. Hermanni 6

• The residence of the composer Eduard Tubin.

6 K A Hermanni Street and Eduard Tubin

During the Second World War, between 1939-1944, the house at 6 K A Hermanni Street was the home of the composer, Eduard Tubin (1905-1982). This was also his last permanent place of residence in Estonia. The plaque was placed on the wall of Tubin’s home in 1990 by a group of people who held his heritage in a high regard. 

Eduard Tubin is deemed to have been one of the greatest Estonian composers of the twentieth century. He spent the early years of his creative life in Tartu where he studied composition under the hand of Heino Eller at the Tartu Higher Music School. He wrote a total of ten symphonies over the course of his career which now form the most significant part of this composer’s diverse body of work. Tubin also created the first Estonian ballet, ‘The Goblin’, which premièred at the Vanemuise Theatre in Tartu in 1943. 

Eduard Tubin fled Estonia in September 1944 to find refuge in Sweden as an escape from Soviet rule, just like thousands of other Estonians. There, he continued on his successful and fertile path as a composer while also keeping in touch with his native country. He became a member of the ‘Swedish Society of Composers’ in 1962. Shortly before his death in 1982, Tubin was able to join the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.