Sunday 10 January 2010

The Voice Of The North

The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under the direction of Paul Hillier completed their sampling of selected survey of the choral work of contemporary composers from the region with Baltic Voices 3. I've already posted about the first in the series and hope to catch up with the second in due course, chronology has never been my strong point. There are some names here that I am familiar with ( Saariaho, Tuur and Gorecki )while the others are totally new to me ( Gundmundsen-Holmgreen, Augustinas, Mazulis, Bergman and Martinaitis ) Three pieces are premiered on the disk with composition dates ranging from 1969 to 2003. The disk is mainly acapella with the exception of the folk like The Stomping Bride by Augustinas which has harpsichord, recorder, viola da gamba and percussion accompaniment and Meditatio by Tuur which benefits from the particiaption of the Rascher Saxophone Quartet. The other works cover a variety of styles from the theatrical Saariaho, the almost spoken singspiel of Bergman, the bouncy and rhythmic Martinaitis and Mazulis and the elegiac Gudmundsen-Holmgreen and Gorecki. The texts set range from the folk to the sacred to the poetic. It goes without saying that the choir's singing throughout is outstanding, showing great control, feeling, clarity and empathy with the music.

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