Bryars, Vasks & Ešenvalds: Glorious Hill

Album review

The Latvian Radio Choir's CD of contemplative choral music is largely devoted to the work of Gavin Bryars, including two of his larger pieces, Glorious Hill and Cadman Requiem. It also includes several of Bryars' shorter works, thirteenth century chant, and music by Latvian composers Peteris Vasks and Eriks Esenvalds. The Esenvalds piece is especially impressive; it's a genuinely haunting setting of a creepy ancient Albanian story, "Légende de la femme emmurée, written in 2005. The composer mingles the conventions and modes of Albanian folk song with a gorgeously lyrical harmonic and melodic language, and interweaves the choral fabric with poignant solos, using texts in Albanian and English. It won first prize in the International Rostrum of Composers Competition, Young Composers division, and deserves to be widely taken up by choirs with the technique to do it justice as it's a real stunner. The Vasks reveals the composer as an absolute master of contemporary choral writing; he's able to generate unearthly sonorities so strange that it's hard to believe they're produced by human voices, and they are always beautifully integrated into the musical whole, never merely odd effects. Bryars' settings draw heavily on chant traditions for their melodic content, but are contrapuntally and harmonically rich in a compelling synthesis of ancient and modern sounds. The pieces collected here are somewhat more conventional than the Esenvalds and Vasks, but show that Bryars is creating a distinctive and substantial contribution to contemporary choral literature. The performances by the Latvian Radio Choir are remarkable for their intonation in this harmonically dense music, the varieties of vocal color they have at their disposal, and the luxuriant warmth of their sound. This is an album of grave but radiant music that should be indispensable for anyone who loves contemporary choral works.

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