With Estonia's Arvo Pärt ascending to the status of elder statesman of Baltic minimalism, several composers have been jockeying for position (if one is permitted to use such a term in such essentially spiritual surroundings) to supplant him. Among them is Tõnu Kõrvits, a student not of Pärt, but of a lesser-known figure in the Estonian choral tradition, Veljo Tormis. As such, Kõrvits writes music that seems to hang between minimalism and an earlier world of compact, tonal choral music. The two large works here, the string ...
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With Estonia's Arvo Pärt ascending to the status of elder statesman of Baltic minimalism, several composers have been jockeying for position (if one is permitted to use such a term in such essentially spiritual surroundings) to supplant him. Among them is Tõnu Kõrvits, a student not of Pärt, but of a lesser-known figure in the Estonian choral tradition, Veljo Tormis. As such, Kõrvits writes music that seems to hang between minimalism and an earlier world of compact, tonal choral music. The two large works here, the string orchestra Labyrinths and Seven Dreams of Seven Birds, for the unusual combination of cello, choir, and orchestra, are not vast minimalist landscapes, but consist of short movements that introduce a few ideas, and in the case of the Labyrinths, circle back to where they started. The role of Anja Lechner's cello, not exactly in dialogue with its companions, but walking beside them and offering commentary, is unique, and it's the Seven Dreams that you might sample for the flavor of the...
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