Latvian Radio Choir

The Latvian Radio Choir was founded in 1940. Since 1992 the Latvian Radio Choir has been led by principal conductor Sigvards Klava and conductor Kaspars Putnins. The Choir's permanent company consists of 24 singers. The Choir repertoire comprises 20-22 different programmes; besides active work in the studio they perform up to 40 concerts per year. The Latvian Radio Choir's direct relationship with Latvian Radio has influenced the choir's development in various dimensions. Regular recordings have assisted the development of precise performance, especially in terms of intonation and dynamics. The Latvian Radio Choir is based on the principal of variety in the way the choir is structured : they can perform either as small groups for madrigals, or with up to ninety singers in performances of magnificent large-form musical works.

The Latvian Radio Choir has collaborated with such orchestras as the Moscow Television and Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, “Moscow Virtuosi”, the Lithuanian Symphony Orchestra, the Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra (France), the Paris Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Flanders, Brussels, the Ostrobonty Chamber Orchestra (Finland), the Malmo Simphony orchestra. They has worked with a number of renowned conductors, including Yehudi Menuhin, Semyon Bychkov, Justus Frantz, Vladimir Spivakov, Vladimir Fedoseev, Mark Sistro, Gansung Kakhidze, Enrico Diemeke and Juha Kangas and have performed with many distinguished artists.

The choir's repertoire consists of all major concert and oratorio works, covering music from the early Renaissance, the music of the Baroque era and the most complicated twentieth century music. Latvian music has always played an important role in the choir's programmes. In collaboration with Latvian Radio Choir many of compositions by the world famous Latvian composer Peteris Vasks have been performed. A consideration of the choir's wide ranging repertoire gives an idea of its achievements. The relationship with Latvian Radio has always stimulated the creation of new Latvian choir literature : almost all composers in Latvia have composed their music for the Latvian Radio Choir. In 1996 the LRC initiated the Festival of New Latvian Choral Music. A composition “At the Edge of the Earth” by Maija Einfelde firstly performed at the Festival of New Latvian Choral Music (written after the Aeschylus “Prometheus Bound”), received the Grand Prix at the 1997 Barlow International Competition (US), for which there were entrants 299. Merrill Bradshow, the Executive Director of the competition, wrote in letter of congratulations to the composer : “We are delighted with your composition and hope the projected new work will be a major contribution to the choral literature for the whole world.”

Discography

Glorious Hill

Lauda 22 - Gavin Bryars Fammi cantar l'amor Lauda 23 - Gavin Bryars Glorious Hill - Gavin Bryars Legende de la femme emmuree - Eriks Esenvalds Dammi conforto Dio Lauda 24 - Gavin Bryars Ziles zina - Peteris Vasks Cadman Requiem - Gavin Bryars -Kyrie/Requiem - Gavin Bryars -Creation Hymn Paraphrase (Bede) - Gavin Bryars -Agnus Dei - Gavin Bryars -Creation Hymn - Gavin Bryars -In Paradisum - Gavin Bryars

In recent years Gavin Bryars has concentrated to a great extent on writing for the human voice - and a great deal of this is choral music. He has a close relationship with ensembles from the Baltic, especially the Latvian Radio Choir, now without doubt one of the world's greatest choirs. His first collaboration with them on GB Records was the superb On 'Photography', which was an Editor's Choice in Gramophone and extensively played on BBC Radio 3. This very fine choir is at home in all forms of contemporary music, but also in music from the baroque as well as early music. Many of Gavin Bryars' works on this recording take forms from early music, and some pieces originate in collaborations with early music ensembles - such as the Hilliard Ensemble and Trio Mediaeval. Here we have the stunning female voices of the Latvian Radio Choir in 9 and 11 part laude; the whole choir a capella in Glorious Hill and, in Cadman Requiem, accompanied by Riga Cathedral's magnificent organ in the cathedral's stunning acoustic. As on the first recording with the Latvian Radio Choir, Gavin Bryars has included works by Latvian composers close to his heart. Eriks Esenvalds is a young composer whose work recorded here was awarded first place at the 2006 International Rostrum for Composers. Peteris Vasks is perhaps the best known of all living Latvian composers. The work of both composers has a profound concern for the spiritual, which has led it to be linked with the music of composers such as Arvo Pärt or Giya Kancheli.

On Photography

And so ended Kant’s Travelling in this World (Gavin Bryars) Three Poems of Cecco Angiolieri Da ispravitsa molitva moja (Arturs Maskata) Expessa Solis Resonare Fibris Diptychon (Silvestrov) The Lord's Prayer Testament

This all a cappella recording featuring some most interesting and talented composers. Gavin Bryars’s numerous recordings have been among the bestselling CDs by any contemporary composer. Two of his albums, The Sinking of the Titanic and Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet, have sold more than 250,000 copies. This recording is notable for the extraordinary beauty of its choral sound, the precision of its ensemble, the perfection of its intonation, the subtlety of its phrasing, and the striking individuality of its soloists.

7836 CD $15.98

Peteris Vasks - Pater Noster

Pater noster Dona Nobis Pacem Missa

Peteris Vasks (1946), Latvia's most prominent composer, was the son of a Baptist minister, and while he always felt a strong affinity for sacred music, he didn't feel free to express it through vocal music since it would never have been allowed to be performed under the Communist regime. Since the early '90s, he has turned his attention more and more to religious texts, and this CD includes three of his most significant sacred choral works, including a setting of the Mass. Vasks' style of choral writing links him to the composers who have come to be described as "holy minimalists," a group that includes Pärt, Górecki, Kancheli, and Tavener, whose music, while stylistically diverse, tends to rely on tonal and modal harmonies, is frequently harmonically static or slow-moving and is often linked to plainchant and ancient liturgical traditions. Vasks' choral music is firmly rooted in Western polyphony and is for the most part traditional-sounding; there is little in it apart from certain unconventional harmonic progressions that would make it immediately identifiable as a product of the late twentieth century. Among the other holy minimalists, the sound of his music is most closely related to that of Górecki in its harmonic textures and the somber earnestness of its moods. The three works recorded here are polyphonically and harmonically sensual, in spite of their serious tone. An exception to the sober tone is the Mass' Sanctus, which, while not exactly lighthearted, is lively; the composer imagines it "sung by happy, little angels." The Latvian Radio Choir sings with warmth and passion and with excellent control in the composer's extended, sustained vocal lines. Sigvards Klava, conducting Sinfonietta Riga, leads them in deeply felt performances. The CD should be of interest both to fans of choral music and of new trends in minimalism tinged with Romanticism..

Peteris Vasks: Mate Saule

Three Poems By Czeslaw Milosz Window So Little Encounter Zemgale Mate Saule (Mother Sun) Madrigals (Madrigal)# Litene# (Ballad for 12-voiced chorus to a text by Uldis Berzins ) I II Dona nobis pacem

Peteris Vasks' songs for mixed choir, like all of his compositions, provide a look at events, a portrait of the times. Quality, not quantity, is the keyword. This recording contains those compositions which the composer feels to be his best contributions to a genre which he has approached relatively sparingly.

Magnificat

Magnificat (Part) Alleluia Tantum ergo Panis angelicus Tota pulchra es, Maria Agnus dei, dona nobis pacem Ave Maria Serse (Xerxes) Ave Maria Messe solennelle de Sainte Cécile

Founded in 1940 by "father of Latvian choral conductors" Teodors Kalnins, the Choir's repertoire embraces Renaissance polyphony as well as works by 20th century composers. Normally performing with 23 singers, the Choir can expand to 100 singers for larger projects. Featured on some cuts is the powerful Riga Cathedral Organ, where this recording was made. 12 sacred pieces: Arvo Part's angelic "Magnificat," Randall Thompson's "Alleluia," wonderful tenor solos on Gabriel Faure's "Tantum Ergo" and Cesar Franck's "Panis Angelicus," Brahms' lovely "Agnus Dei, Dona Nobis Pacem—Mass in C Major," Dvorak's "Benedictus—Mass in D major," Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's, Schubert's and Bach's compositions of "Ave Maria," Handel's "O, cor Jesu"… This is some of the most beautiful music ever written, performed by one of Latvia's finest mixed choirs.

Rytis Mazulis - Cum Essum Parvulus

Canon Solus Sybilla Cum Essem Parvulus Ajapajapam

Conductor Kaspars Putni leads this wonderful choir on the works of Rytis Mazulis.

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