Gidon Kremer, Nicolas Altstaed - Sofia Gubaidulina: Canticle Of The Sun (2012) [Official Digital Download]

Sofia Gubaidulina doesn't designate either of the pieces on this recording as concertos even though they feature a solo and ensemble, and that logic is evident in the sound of the music itself, which integrates the soloists organically into its texture and structure. Gubaidulina is unquestionably a modernist and employs a wide spectrum of contemporary techniques, but she is also a mystic, so her music tends to convey a striving for transcendence that's expressed in luminous warmth. She wrote The Lyre of Orpheus for violin, percussion, and string orchestra for Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica, who deliver a radiant, shimmering performance. In her notes on the piece, Gubaidulina deals only with her somewhat arcane strategies for deriving pitches and chords, but the music itself glows with timbral ingenuity and sweetness, and almost inevitably invites the listener to call to mind the poignancy of the myth of Orpheus. She does not mention it in the notes, but she wrote the piece as a memorial to her daughter, which certainly accounts for the music's intense depth of feeling. The Canticle of the Sun for cello, chamber choir, percussion, and celesta was dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave its premiere in 1998. The unique orchestration gives it an atmosphere of luminous, ethereal mystery. She wanted to pay tribute to the cellist's famously sunny disposition, and it has sections that make one of her most exuberant works; the cello sends major chords rocketing through the first movement and there is a furiously powerful roar of ecstasy at the end of the second movement. The piece ends in the major, in an exquisitely delicate filigree of interwoven lines. Nicolas Altstaedt gives a distinguished, deeply committed performance, and the Riga Chamber Choir "Kamer…" sings with lustrous tone. ECM's sound is perfectly clean, realistic, and beautifully balanced.