Tiidu the Flute Player from Võru

Tiidu the Flute Player from Võru

Kreutzwald wrote a fairy tale about Tiidu the Flute Player, who was advised by a grey old man to earn money by playing the flute. Driven by greed, the flute player boarded a ship in Narva harbour, hoping to get a free ride to Kungla, the land of fortune. The story tells of Tiidu the Flute Player’s dizzying adventures abroad and his eventual return home.

Here, beneath the canopy and along the park paths, hundreds of similar flute players from Võru performed in brass bands — either for free or for tips. While the band was playing, a plate was placed on the table for the audience to leave donations. The bandsmen used to say, “Let us play for the plate.”

Interestingly, it was the Narva-born musician Eduard Tamm who became Võru’s most legendary brass band leader. The writer Artur Adson also performed here in the spirit of Tiidu the Flute Player, delighting local audiences. Adson’s relatives, Bruno and Karl Anderson, together with Võru’s oldest brass band, built an ice rink on Lake Tamula each winter and entertained skaters with their “tunes on the ice.”

They truly knew how to enjoy life in Võru — as if they had lived in the land of fortune itself.