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.

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.

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.

…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.