I’ll just kick things
off with a bang and go on record as
stating that this is one of the best
choir discs I’ve heard in recent years.
The Latvian Radio Choir
handles difficult material with ease
and with no noticeable sagging in pitch
over the duration of these pieces. These
new and unfamiliar works have a great
beauty, hold the attention of the listener,
and are works of quality. Quite simply,
a stunning achievement.
Of the pieces represented
here, only the Diptychon by Silvestrov
appears to have been previously available
on commercial recording. All will likely
be unfamiliar to most listeners. In
this recording, for the first time,
GB Records (Gavin Bryars’ own label)
includes works by someone other than
the man who established the label. Bryars
is certainly well-represented here,
with seven of the ten tracks by him;
included here are two astounding works
by Valentin Silvestrov and Arturs Maskats.
All of these pieces — with the exception
of one track — are a capella
save for occasional percussion.
The disc starts off
with Bryars’s setting of a paragraph
from de Quincey’s The Last Days of
Immanuel Kant. The tonality is very
much from that of early church music
— a tone that carries us though the
disc. The Maskats piece is the showstopper;
a breathtaking setting of three verses
of Psalm 141, starting with verse two.
With child soprano Monta Martinsone
repeating the line that titles the work
("let my prayer be set forth"
in the King James translation - the
work is sung in Russian), this section
is a wonderful depiction of a fragile
hope, of humility before God. By verse
three the fear of sin is given expression
through Gundars Dzilums’s ominous baritone.
The choir builds as the urgency of the
plea rises to the breaking-point. The
pale hope, the fragile faith represented
by the soprano returns. An absolutely
stunning work.
Next, the centrepiece
of the album, Bryars’ On Photography
has a lot to live up to after such a
piece. It holds its own, though not
as visceral or urgent. It is a setting
in three movements of the poetry of
Cardinal Pecci written in 1867, before
he became Pope Leo XIII. It is written,
like the other Bryars pieces, in a style
steeped in early church music. The choir
begins in octaves. The middle movement
begins in unison, and for the first
time on this disc we hear a harmonium
and piano which maintain a barely-there
presence. The middle movement’s 17 minute
length overstays its welcome with extended
Philip Glass-like noodling, but the
work as a whole is quite affecting.
The final piece, the
Diptychon by Russian composer
Valentin Silvestrov, begins with a beautiful
setting of the Lord’s Prayer. It has
a very Russian Orthodox flavour, with
the higher voices shifting chords over
a bass drone. At no point here or elsewhere
does the Latvian Radio Choir wobble
in its control over dynamics, pitch
or expression. This ensemble has immense
range vocally and emotionally; they
display the range of both to great effect
here. Recording and production values
for this disc are superb, and the performances
set a very high standard for any subsequent
recordings of works that should be performed
more widely. A triumph.
David Blomenberg
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Janis Maleckis (piano); Gavin Bryars (harmonium);
Edgars Saksons (percussion); Monta Martinsone
(soprano); Gundars Dzilums (baritone), Ensemble
Cosmos 
