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Artist: Vox Clamantis
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Vox Clamantis:

Music by Henrik Odegaard

After dedicating past ECM New Series recordings to the works of contemporary composers Arvo Pärt, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Helena Tulve and most recently Cyrillus Kreek, the Vox Clamantis choir, under the direction of Jaan-Eik Tulve, turns its attention towards Norwegian composer Henrik Ødegaard with a fine-drawn programme of liturgical choral music. Vox Clamantis are at home in the worlds of both old and new music, having addressed Gregorian chant and the polyphony of Pérotin as well as present-day compositions on previous albums. The ensemble and the works of Ødegaard make a perfect match, as the composer’s work, in a subtle sleight of hand, interweaves Gregorian chant with Norwegian folk song.

“In this recording, Gregorian chant is the protagonist,” writes Kristina Kõrver in the liner notes, “sometimes in its pure beauty, sometimes intertwined with the ‘new song’ of Henrik Ødegaard. As an organist and choir conductor, his musical thinking has been strongly influenced by two important traditions, Gregorian chant and Norwegian folk music, both of which have found unique expressions in his work.”

While these two traditions appear inextricably merged into one in the performance of the choir, they are visibly separated from one another in Ødegaard’s scores – the passages of Gregorian chant being marked in square notation, the predominant musical notation form in European vocal music from the 13th to the early 17th century. It’s a symbolic divide, translated gracefully into the music by opening up monophonic plainchant with modern polyphonic ingredients. The composer employs liturgical hymns as source material, from which he then branches off with his own compositional voice. 

Vox Clamantis:

Cyrillus Kreek - The Suspended Harp of Babel

Vox Clamantis, under the direction of Jaan-Eik Tulve, has established itself as Estonia's foremost small vocal ensemble, at home in the worlds of both old and new music. Their ECM New Series discography, accordingly, has ranged from Gregorian chant and Perotin (as on Filia Sion) to present-day composers including Arvo Pärt (The Deer's Cry), Erkki-Sven Tüür (Oxymoron) and Helena Tulve (Arboles lloran por lluvia). On The Suspended Harp of Babel Vox Clamantis turns its attention to Cyrillus Kreek (1889-1962), whose work also took nourishment from ancient sources as well as from contemporaneous musical currents.

One of the innovators of choral music in Estonia, Kreek drew extensively upon folk music and was a pioneer in the documentation of it, recording, transcribing and preserving for posterity hundreds of songs, both sacred and secular. His arrangements of these folk songs and folk hymns, as well as his settings of psalms, provided a bedrock for choirs in an idiom of his own, described by Paul Griffiths in the liner notes here as "restrained and yet glowing."

Cyrillus Kreek, born in the village of Saanika, was a contemporary of Arvo Pärt's teacher Heino Eller, and both studied at the St Petersburg Conservatory in the years before the First World War. Kreek's music, emphasizing simplicity, clarity, and the natural quality of the human voice, influenced many composers in Estonia including Veljo Tormis (who also creatively deployed folk song in choral contexts) and Tõnu Kõrvits. The quietly radiant aura of his work is enhanced on the present recording by the contributions of Marco and Angela Ambrosini playing nyckelharpa and by Anna-Liisa Eller on kannel, the Estonian zither.

Vox Clamantis:

The Deer's Cry music by Arvo Part

The second ECM New Series album to fully showcase Estonian vocal group Vox Clamantis is devoted to compositions by their great countryman, Arvo Pärt – whose music has been the most performed globally of any living composer over the past five years from his 75th birthday leading up to his 80th last September. This album – titled The Deer's Cry after its first track, an incantatory work for a cappella mixed choir – is also the latest in a long, illustrious line of ECM New Series releases to feature Pärt's compositions, the very music that inspired Manfred Eicher to establish the New Series imprint in 1984. Along with such classic works as Da Pacem Domine,the new album includes first-time recordings of the a cappella pieces Drei Hirtenkinder aus Fátimaand Habitare Fratres. There is also an a cappella version of Alleluia-Tropus, which Vox Clamantis previously recorded alongside instruments for the Grammy Award-winning ECM New Series album Adam's Lament. Rarely recorded material makes up nearly half of this new release, which includes three pieces with subtle instrumental accompaniment: Von Angesicht zu Angesicht, Sei gelobt, du Baumand Veni Creator.