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Mr McFall's Chamber - Solitudes: Baltic Reflections (2015)

Posted By: Designol
Mr McFall's Chamber - Solitudes: Baltic Reflections (2015)

Mr McFall's Chamber - Solitudes: Baltic Reflections (2015)
Olli Mustonen, Zita Bruzaite, Aulis Sallinen, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Kalevi Aho
Arvo Pärt, Toivo Kärki, Jean Sibelius, Unto Mononen, Pēteris Vasks

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 267 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 154 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical, Contemporary | Label: Delphian | # DCD34156 | Time: 01:05:28

No one knows quite when tango was established in Finland, but the style has a long history there – still little known to outsiders – and combines rhythmic interest and yearning melody with a distinctively Nordic melancholy. In this ingeniously curated programme, two Finnish tangos from the 1950s and a tango-based work by Finnish classical composer Aulis Sallinen are woven into a bold tapestry of music from the Eastern Baltic seaboard. Longing, sadness, and a heightened sense of nature infuse all of these works, which also reveal intriguing stylistic connections: the rocking accompaniment of Sibelius’ 'Einsames Lied' seems to prefigure the ‘Baltic minimalism’ of Vasks, Pärt and Zita Bružaité, while Olli Mustonen’s 'Toccata' alternates rhythmic verve with a rich vein of reflective memory. These original compositions are complemented by Robert McFall’s own sensitive arrangements, for a core McFall’s lineup of five strings and piano, and the programme culminates in a truly unique version of Sibelius’s famous 'Finlandia' Hymn.

Borusan Quartet - Company: Arvo Part, Hasan Ucarsu, Philip Glass, Peteris Vasks (2017)

Posted By: Designol
Borusan Quartet - Company: Arvo Part, Hasan Ucarsu, Philip Glass, Peteris Vasks (2017)

Borusan Quartet - Company: Arvo Pärt, Hasan Uçarsu, Philip Glass, Pēteris Vasks (2017)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 283 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 169 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical, Contemporary | Label: Onyx Classics | # 4171 | Time: 01:03:45

Of four living composers here, one is less well known. Like the Borusan Quartet itself, Hasan Uçarsu (born 1965) is Turkish. His String Quartet No 2 “The Untold” consists of two short, pensive outer movements – called epilogue and prologue – and two questing, energetic central movements full of Anatolian folk inspiration. Arvo Pärt’s Summa is a string version of a meditative vocal piece from 1977. Pēteris Vasks, like Pärt, found his own spiritual voice within or despite the restrictive Soviet aesthetic, as witnessed in his poignant String Quartet No 4. Philip Glass, in contrast, wrote his Quartet No 2, robustly minimalist, as stage music for an adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s novel Company. A fascinating, engagingly played quartet of quartets.

Latvian Radio Choir, Sigvards Klava, Kaspars Putnins - Peteris Vasks: Mate Saule (2001)

Posted By: Designol
Latvian Radio Choir, Sigvards Klava, Kaspars Putnins - Peteris Vasks: Mate Saule (2001)

Pēteris Vasks: Māte Saule (2001)
Latvian Radio Choir; Sigvards Kļava & Kaspars Putniņš, conductors

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 222 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 162 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Choral | Label: BIS | # BIS-CD-1145 | Time: 01:06:11

Mate saule is Mother Sun – and Peteris Vasks worships her. Any meeting or interview with the Latvian composer is likely to end up with a tramp through the forests or a swim in the Baltic. And much of Vasks’s music is a meditation on the eternal attributes of Nature, in a continuum of life which stretches beyond the fever and the fret of his own fast-changing world. Mate saule is an early choral work, its voices oscillating like the shimmer of a sun slowly rising from the horizon, and lit by flares and fragments of chant. Vasks’s choral music has tended to be instrumental in texture, focusing on the overall mood rather than the specific verbal activity of any text he is setting. The ‘white diatonicism’ of Mate saule gives way to more disturbed, aleatoric harmonies and more disruptive textures as political change and human turmoil take centre stage in the late Eighties in Zemgale, a song about the anguished dilemmas of exile. This is a subject at the very core of the work of the Polish-Lithuanian writer Czeslaw Milosz (now resident in the USA); and the three poems set by Vasks in 1994 receive their world premiere recording. They were originally written for the Hilliard Ensemble: here the excellent Latvian Radio Choir works with concentrated focus on the spare harmonies and elusive metres which recreate the wonder of three transient moments out of time.

Tuomas Pyrhonen - Peteris Vasks: Organ Works (2012)

Posted By: Designol
Tuomas Pyrhonen - Peteris Vasks: Organ Works (2012)

Pēteris Vasks: Organ Works (2012)
Tuomas Pyrhönen (The Riga Cathedral Walcker Organ)

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 256 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 180 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical, Organ | Label: Alba | # ABCD325 | Time: 01:16:21

Pēteris Vasks has described the organ as the most expressive instrument of all. He feels that a composer living in Riga is duty bound to write music for the famous Walcker organ at Riga Cathedral. The instrument dates from 1883 and has 24 stops with four manuals and two pedalboards and a total of 6,718 pipes. The organ has been preserved in its original state.

Alina Pogostkina, Sinfonietta Riga, Juha Kangas - Peteris Vasks: Vox Amoris - Works for Violin and String Orchestra (2012)

Posted By: Designol
Alina Pogostkina, Sinfonietta Riga, Juha Kangas - Peteris Vasks: Vox Amoris - Works for Violin and String Orchestra (2012)

Pēteris Vasks - Vox Amoris: Works for Violin and String Orchestra (2012)
Alina Pogostkina, violin; Sinfonietta Rīga; Juha Kangas, conductor

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 326 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 166 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Wergo | # WER 6750 2 | Time: 01:08:41

The music of Peteris Vasks must be considered against the background of the socially and politically turbulent history of his home country Latvia. It frequently shifts through contrasting emotional states, with passages of sumptuous beauty sometimes followed by disjointed and dramatic sounds. According to Vasks, all three of the works for violin and orchestra featured here represent the polarity between optimistic hope for a better future and an anxious concern for the modern world. Included are the fantasia Vox Amoris, the concerto Tala gaisma (Distant Light), Vasks' first and most extensive work for violin and string orchestra and the tone poem Vientulais engelis (Lonely Angel). All are performed by the exceptional violinist Alina Pogostkina, superbly accompanied by the Sinfonietta Riga under the direction of Juha Kangas.

Tamara-Anna Cislowska; Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Johannes Fritzsch - Into Silence: Gorecki; Part; Pelecis; Vasks (2017)

Posted By: Designol
Tamara-Anna Cislowska; Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Johannes Fritzsch - Into Silence: Gorecki; Part; Pelecis; Vasks (2017)

Into Silence: Henryk Górecki; Arvo Pärt; Georgs Pelēcis; Pēteris Vasks (2017)
Tamara-Anna Cislowska, piano; Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Johannes Fritzsch, conductor

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 327 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 207 Mb | Scans included
Classical, Contemporary | Label: ABC Classics | # ABC 481 6295 | Time: 01:21:32

This recording from Australian label ABC Classics presents beautiful piano music by Vasks, Gorecki, Part and Pelecis - some of it with orchestra, some of it solo piano. The Pelecis concerto that opens the album is almost completely unknown, and stunning. Tamara-Anna Cislowska's recordings have won, amongst others, the 2015 ARIA Award for Best Classical Album and Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice. Absorbing simplicity, transcendent serenity, deep spirituality. Into Silence, the new album from pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska, immerses us in the sound world of an extraordinary generation of composers from the Baltics: Henryk Górecki (born Poland, 1933), Arvo Pärt (Estonia, 1935), Peteris Vasks (Latvia, 1946) and Georgs Pelcis (Latvia, 1947).