Baltic Voices 3

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Once again Paul Hillier and his Estonian choir provide a varied programme of new choral works by Baltic composers. Despite a wide gamut of styles, each composition has an immediacy that is not... — BBC Music Magazine More…

Release Date: 31st Oct 2005
Catalogue No: HMU907391
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Length: 78 minutes

BBC Music Magazine Awards

2007

Choral Finalist
Gramophone Magazine

February 2006

Editor's Choice

Augustinas: The Stomping Bride (1994)

Work length4:23

$1.00

$1.25

Gudmundsen-Holmgreen: Statements (1969)

Work length5:54

$1.00

$1.25

Saariaho: Nuits, adieux (1991, 1996)

Work length11:33

$1.40

$1.75

Mazulis: The dazzled eye lost its speech (1992)

Work length4:53

$1.00

$1.25

Bergman, E: Vier Galgenlieder, Op.51b (1960)

Work length6:18

$4.00

$5.00

I. Das grosse Lalula

Track length1:20

$1.00

$1.25

III. Tapetenblume

Track length1:04

$1.00

$1.25

II. Igel und Agel

Track length2:07

$1.00

$1.25

IV. Unter Zeiten

Track length1:47

$1.00

$1.25

Martinaitis: Alleluia (1996)

Work length4:01

$1.00

$1.25

Tüür: Meditatio

Work length17:55

Album only

Gorecki: 5 Kurpian Songs, Op.75 (1999)

Work length23:22

$5.20

$6.50

Hej, z góry, z góry!

Track length3:53

$1.00

$1.25

Ciamna nocka, ciamna

Track length3:07

$1.00

$1.25

Wcoraj, dziwcyno, nie dzisiaj

Track length4:50

$1.00

$1.25

Z Torunia ja parobecek

Track length2:24

$1.00

$1.25

Wysla burzycka, bandzie desc

Track length9:08

$1.20

$1.50

Reviews
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Reviews

Once again Paul Hillier and his Estonian choir provide a varied programme of new choral works by Baltic composers. Despite a wide gamut of styles, each composition has an immediacy that is not always found in contemporary music.

January 2006

Letters posted to friends at home: that's how Paul Hillier describes the three volumes of choral music which have resonated far and wide as Baltic Voices - voices of both a wide range of composers, and of his Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. You couldn't wish for more varied and more endlessly absorbing letters home, nor for one premiere more thrillingly different from another.

2010

Paul Hillier continues his top–class 'Baltic Voices' series with a compilation that embraces Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland. It is an attractive, stylistically wide– ranging programme, one that carefully avoids the obvious in its choice of pieces. The styles range from pseudo–medievalism (Augustinas) through 'sculptural minimalism' (Gudmundsen– Holmgreen) to modernism (Saariaho, with a version of Nuits, adieux that transfers its original electronic effects to the choir), by way of 'spiral canon' (MaOulis), elaborated Sprechstimme (Bergman), new spirituality (Martinaitis), ascetic ritualism (Tüür, whose Meditatio strikes me as the intellectually toughest yet most rewarding music on the disc and least deserves having a label pinned on it), and straightforward folksiness (Górecki, in soft–grained but undeniably memorable form).
Not all of the works are on an especially exalted level but they are well chosen as vehicles for displaying the versatility and polish of Hillier's fine Estonian singers. Harmonia Mundi's recording is unimpeachable and the disc comes with a thoughtful background essay as well as notes on composers and works, all by Hillier, plus texts and translations presented with scrupulous care. A quality issue this, then, and a high priority, surely, for anyone interested in the contemporary choral repertoire.

Harmonia Mundi's recording is unimpeachable...A quality issue this, and a high priority, surely, for anyone interested in the contemporary choral repertoire.

February 2006

…an attractive, stylistically wide-ranging programme, one that carefully avoids the obvious in its choice… well chosen as vehicles for displaying the versatility and polish of Hillier's fine Estonian singers.

Baltic Voices 3

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