Though Vasks in his early works was influenced by Bartók, Shostakovich, and the “New Polish School”, he was inspired after 1990 by the minimalism coming out of Estonia. This Baltic-Finnish stylistic atmosphere is definitely present in Vasks’s Third Symphony (from 2004-05). The Tampere Filharmonia was responsible for the genesis of this piece. The orchestra’s management asked the composer for an “introductory piece” of 15 to 20 minutes duration. His trust in the unique energy of his own inner voices gave birth to a symphonic landscape of more than 40 minutes duration, his longest and most intellectually rich orchestral work so far. In his symphony, Vasks wanted to represent the beauty of the world God created, the destiny of humanity, and the fate of the Latvian people, as he explained. The symphony speaks “of love and fidelity to basic principles, of loss, and of the strength to rise and move forward – and also of the endless battle between darkness and light. Like its predecessors, the Third Symphony is quite transparent. There are seldom more than two simultaneous sound events at any given moment, one of which is usually a static background. There is little contrapuntal activity. Melodic gestures, atmosphere, and instrumental color establish the work’s character. His Concerto for Flute and Orchestra is constructed symmetrically. The burlesque middle movement is framed by elegiac outer movements flowing along in serene tranquility and beauty. Passages with wind chorales and distant ringing of bells alternate with passages the mood of which ranges from meditative via lamenting to euphoric.

Renowned for its luminosity and searing expressiveness, the music of Lithuanian composer P?teris Vasks frequently explores the relationship between nature and humanity, not least in the Flute Concerto written for Michael Faust, which is among the most expansive of Vasks’ orchestral works. Abstract qualities in the Sonata contrast with the deftly defined lyrical and rhythmic elements of Aria e danza, while Landscape with Birds exploits the entirety of the flute’s timbral range. Patrick Gallois and “the brilliant Michael Faust” (MusicWeb International) have also recorded the music of Mauricio Kagel (Naxos 8.572635).

VASKS Episodi e Canto perpetuo. Quartet 1 • Tr Parnassus; Avri Levitan (va) 1 • MDG 903 1513 (Hybrid multichannel SACD 65:15)


Péteris Vasks belongs to the grouping of Eastern European composers who were trained in the Soviet era (he was born in Latvia in 1946), and have, since the fall of the iron curtain, amalgamated modernistic (formerly banished) elements into their aural palette. The work of such composers as Pärt, Gubaidulina, Silvestrov, and Górecki, while very different in important ways, all share a depth of expression reflecting a dark world view and life experience that does not occur in the music of their Western colleagues. Vasks wrote this piano trio in 1985; he describes it as “a painful journey through misery, disappointment and suffering towards love,” and dedicates the piece to Olivier Messiaen. The French master’s influence is all over this beautiful work, with many echoes from the Quatuor pour le fin de temps . There are the huge cluster chords on the piano, the oddly lurching rhythmic effects, and most tellingly, grand, arching crescendos of intense emotional power, reminiscent of Messiaen’s two magnificent louanges (praises) from the Quartet.


The Quartet (it is a piano quartet), completed 16 years later, begins in a generally more jaunty way, incorporating what sound like folk-dance elements, in the manner of Bartók. It is not without the singular expressiveness of the composer, however, especially in the canti that are at the heart of the six-movement work. The language of the music is more approachable than the 1985 work, but it is as uncompromising in depth of expression. The more jagged edges of the earlier music make it more interesting to me, though, particularly in the rhythmic structure. None of this is what I would call easy listening, nor was it intended to be.


Performances by the German ensemble Trio Parnassus, as well as by Israeli violist Avri Levitan in the Quartet, are superbly committed and vibrant, and MDG, as usual, captures them in rich, natural sound.

FANFARE: Peter Burwasser


This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Solo violin and string orchestra - the pieces on this CD focus on Peteris Vasks' favourite instrumentation. His music - which always has to be viewed against the background of the socially and politically turbulent history of his home country Latvia - leads here through contrasting emotional states: passages of sumptuous beauty are followed by disjointed and dramatic sounds. All three pieces, according to Vasks, represent the polarity between optimistic hope for a better future and an anxious concern for the modern world. About the fantasia "Vox Amoris" Vasks said: "It has to do with the strongest force in the world - love. I hope that this piece touches the listener and makes the world a little more friendly and open for love." With the violin, the "voice of love", the listener experiences different sensations from a gentle blossoming to open passion. 1996/97 saw the composition of the concerto "T?l? gaisma" ("Distant Light"), Vasks' first and so far most extensive work for violin and string orchestra. Its form consists of a sequence of strongly contrasting episodes that are partly influenced by Latvian folk music. Almost ten years later he wrote "Vientu?ais en?elis" ("Lonely Angel"). During its composition, Vasks had a special image in mind: "I saw an angel, flying over the world; the angel looks at the world's condition with grieving eyes, but an almost imperceptible, loving touch of the angel's wings brings comfort and healing. This piece is my music after the pain." The pieces are performed by the exceptional violinist Alina Pogostkina, superbly accompanied by the Sinfonietta R?ga under the direction of Juha Kangas. "You really have to rhapsodize about Alina Pogostkina: so young, so brilliant, so musical, perfect and at the same time natural." (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

The first complete performance of Vasks’ cycle Gadalaiki in superb readings and recording.

Vasks has repeatedly commented on the importance of Nature for him as a person but also as a composer. Indeed Nature often informs his music in one way or another, sometimes almost literally as in the use of stylised birdsong. Rural landscapes from Latvia also imbue some of his music. It is thus not surprising that the cycle of the seasons has inspired him as it has many other composers. His own Seasons, however, were not written as a complete cycle from the start. The idea of a complete cycle came to him when he heard Vestard Shimkus play Pasavara muzika (“Spring Music”) in 2004. The earlier pieces of the cycle - Balta ainava (“White Landscape”) and Rudens muzika (“Autumn Music”) - were composed in 1980 and 1981 respectively for Talivaldis Deksnis who is now better known as an organist and who has recently recorded Vasks’ organ works (Wergo WER 6712 2). As with many other similar cycles Vasks’ Gadalaiki (“The Seasons”) are neither programmatic nor descriptive. The music rather suggests impressions and moods.

Balta ainava (“White Landscape”) is a slow, almost minimalist piece evoking frozen, snow-covered landscapes with the simplest, though most effective means. In total contrast, Pavasara muzika (“Spring Music”), subtitled Quasi una sonata, is the longest and most developed of the whole cycle. The music begins slowly, almost hesitantly. Later it ebbs and flows alternating highly contrasting material, by turns slow and meditative and rhythmically intense. It steadily builds to its exalted, almost ecstatic close. Zala ainava (“Green Landscape”) represents summer. The music opens with a great burst of energy and unfolds with relentless alacrity. It pauses in a short slow section until it reaches the folk-inflected coda quoting from a Latvian folk song. Rudens muzika (“Autumn Music”) begins calmly, but the October storms soon sweep over the land. The storms subside and slower episodes (“a gentle sadness” according to the composer) settle in, but “after a last great storm, the snow comes again as a symbol of a conclusion and a new beginning” (Peteris Vasks).

Vasaras vakara muzika (“Music for a Summer Evening”) is not part of the Gadalaiki cycle but was written as an encore of sorts, albeit a fairly substantial one. This is a very fine miniature tone poem unfolding in utter tranquillity except for a somewhat more animated central section.

Although his output includes many chamber works, Peteris Vasks is ultimately better known as an orchestral composer; but these works for piano are really very fine although I suspect that they must be quite taxing and demanding on the player’s part. Vestard Shimkus obviously possesses all the qualities of technique and musicality that these often beautiful works call for.

I also want to single out for praise the quality of the recorded sound. One hardly realises that this programme was recorded live.

No admirer of Vasks’ music will want to be without this very fine release.

-- Hubert Culot, MusicWeb International

The love for the Latvian landscape is audible in the piano works of Latvia’s greatest living composer, Peteris Vasks (b. 1946), especially in his Seasons, the composer’s most frequently performed piano work. For this album pianist Reinis Zarinš has brought two other piano works alongside The Seasons as first recordings: Vasks’ early piano work Cycle (Zyklus) from the 1970s, and a new piano work, Cuckoo’s Voice. Spring Elegy (2021), written by the composer for Reinis Zarinš during the pandemic.

Ever since his concerto debut at the age of ten, Reinis Zariņš has performed as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician throughout Europe and North America. He has participated in prestigious music festivals including the Lucerne Festival, the Bath International Music Festival, and the Scotia Festival of Music. His thoughtful virtuosity has delighted audiences at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. Reinis has collaborated with leading orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Kremerata Baltica, and the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, and with conductors Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös, Pablo Heras-Casado, and Andris Poga, among others.

REVIEWS:

Alongside the world premiere recording of Vasks’ first-ever piano piece Cycle (1976) and the epic, complete The Seasons — four freestanding works composed between 1980 and 2008 — Cuckoo’s Voice—Spring Elegy (2021) serves to reinforce a sense of the importance to Vasks of his ongoing calling ‘that he must, until his last breath, glorify God’s world and people and his fatherland’, as Zariņš puts it. Yet, while Cycle especially is a welcome reminder of Vasks’ more astringent youthful style, and his writing is never less than intensely felt, there’s little trace here of the outright anguish that has often characterized his better-known string pieces. It’s as if Vasks is writing from inside nature as opposed to merely observing it: there’s an overarching stillness and acceptance within the sometimes dramatic push-pull of growth and decay explored throughout—and the contrasting moods he traverses ultimately nestle within that bigger process, albeit to varying degrees of comfort.

Zariņš’s impeccable pianism is hugely to thank for this, and his capacity to trace cohesive narratives through often lengthy, apparently free-wheeling but rigorously composed, works. Most satisfying is ‘Autumn Music’ (1981) which looks stylistically backwards and forwards even as it rounds The Seasons and the album itself.

-- BBC Music Magazine

This has the premiere recordings of Zyklus (Cycle) from 1976 and Cuckoo’s Voice. Spring Elegy from 2021. Cuckoo’s Voice is improvisatory and generally meditative, though it does have a few clamorous climaxes. Then Cycle bursts in with notes firing as if from a machine gun, taunting and acerbic. Its pauses are foreboding. Zarins brings out some impressive sounds from the insides of the piano: gradations of pizzicato and a pulsing, ringing “wub-wub-wub” from some low frequencies at the end of the ‘Prologue’. Most string-plucking from pianists sounds awkward, but Zarins gets loveliness out of it, even evoking a zither in the ‘Nocturne’. The repetitive rumblings and clattering chords of ‘Drama’ are too close to pompous avant-garde pounding for my taste, though I have to admit that Vasks manages to preserve his own Baltic voice through it all. The ‘Epilogue’ ties the preceding movements together and ends with what sounds like bricks dropping onto the strings.

The Seasons clocks in at 52 minutes. ‘White Scenery’ is a somewhat minimalist reverie, while ‘Spring Music’ goes for nearly 20 minutes, rippling and ringing and shaking the whole world by the collar with vernal urgency. This spring is the opposite of the English pastoral type and more like a tempered, transparent version of one of Messiaen’s bird-song pieces. The harmonies of ‘Green Scenery’ veer closer to England, but the repeated chords soon turn to tedium. Irritation turns to exasperation in ‘Autumn Music’ and its unending strings of repeated notes similar to tremolo on a guitar. It is more bearable when I concentrate on it (rather than, say, listening to it in the car), but rarely has a piece driven me up the wall so quickly.

Zarins’s playing is superb, and any Vasks fan will want this.

-- American Record Guide (Stephen Page)

Pianist Reinis Zarinš impresses with evocative music-making. In coaxing beautiful colors from the piano, he renders well the more subtle as well as the more immediate moods of the music.

-- Pizzicato

This release includes new works written by Peteris Vasks (b. 1946), internationally the most well-known composer from Latvia, performed by his compatriots, the Latvian Radio Choir and Sinfonietta Riga under the direction of Sigvards Klava. During the years both the choir and the orchestra have collaborated extensively with the composer and premiered several works by him, including Da pacem, Domine which was premiered as a part of Peteris Vasks' 70th anniversary concert in 2016. This album is the third album dedicated to works by Vasks by the Latvian Radio Choir and Sigvards Klava on Ondine. Three works included on this album were written in 2016: Da pacem, Domine is according to the composer, a powerful “cry of desperation for our times, a prayer for our mad world. I believe that music strengthens our faith, love and soul.” Mein Herr und mein Gott is a work inspired by a solemn meditation written by a 15th century Swiss mystic Nicholas of Flüe, also known as Brother Klaus. The lyrics of Laudate Dominum, the title piece of the album, consist of only one sentence which is repeated by the choir. The choral texture of the work alternates with majestic organ episodes. The remaining two works in the album are based on texts by Mother Teresa.

Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks (b. 1946) is one of the most prominent names among living composers today. This album by the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andris Poga includes the first recording of Vasks’ atmospheric and pastoral Oboe Concerto written for the centenary celebrations of Latvia’s independence in 2018 and performed by one of today’s leading oboists, Albrecht Mayer. The new concerto is coupled with two early orchestral works from the 1980s, Vestijums and Lauda – both musical manifestations from the final years of the Soviet Union when occupied Latvia started its peaceful fight to regain the country’s independence.

REVIEW:

Although he was a septuagenarian when he composed this Oboe Concerto in 2018, on a commission from oboist Albrecht Mayer, the music of composer Pēteris Vasks has continued to evolve. The inclusion here of two of Vasks’ 1980s orchestral works is to the point, for they are clearly works of the same composer as the Oboe Concerto, showing a characteristic departure from Baltic minimalism in a Romantic direction. Yet Vasks’ weaving of Romantic and minimalist has deepened over the years. One feels that the performances here by are unusually committed; the effect is hypnotic. The detailed notes, providing a good deal of context relevant to the development of Vasks’ increasingly influential music, form another attraction.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

The beauty that the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks evokes in his works would not be possible without the experience of violence and cruelty in this world. He grew up in a country deprived of liberty, and because of his faith and his artistic convictions he was exposed to reprisals from Russian cultural doctrine. His father, a Baptist pastor, was regarded as an “enemy of the people”, and his homeland was under Soviet control. As a result, Vasks developed a vision of freedom and subtle protest in his music. In the so-called “singing revolution”, the countries of the Baltic region with their traditional love of choral music initiated their independence from Soviet rule. Vasks' expressive, direct and often deliberately simple music quickly became the mouthpiece of the long-suppressed Latvian people, giving the nation a proud voice that can be heard worldwide.

Today, alongside Arvo Pärt, Vasks is one of the most famous composers from the Baltic states of the former Soviet Union. The works on this release are for chamber-music string ensembles: his first symphony "Balsis - Voices" (1991), the haunting violin concerto "Tala gaisma - Distant Light" (1996/97), and the piece "Viatore” (the traveler; 2001), dedicated to Arvo Pärt, here in a version for eleven solo strings by the conductor, church musician and arranger Stefan Vanselow. The Münchner Rundfunkorchester plays under its chief conductor Ivan Repušic, and the concerto soloist is Stanko Madic, first concertmaster of the MRO.

REVIEW

Distant Light's heartfelt, rooted performance may well prove a front runner in a field more competitive than that of any other concerto by a living composer. There is a strong sense of narrative sound from Repušić’s orchestra but also from Madić, whose control of vibrato and tone colour ranges from nervous intensity to still radiance. The cantabile movements retreat without exactly relaxing, the cadenzas are determinedly articulate and the overall power is cumulative more than choreographed. The difficult-to-record ending comes off well.

Recommended as a string-only immersion in Vasks’s world, a competitive account of his most famous work or just something to keep you going until the light actually returns.

–Gramophone

Having spent much of his childhood in Latvia, where he also began his violin studies, Vadim Gluzman makes a return to his roots with this disc of music by Peteris Vasks. The ample programme (+ 84 minutes!) opens with the violin concerto ‘Distant Light’, which in the two decades since it was composed has become a modern classic. The composer has described it as ‘a song, coming from silence and floating away into silence, full of idealism and love, at times melancholy, at times dramatic.’

For the concerto, Gluzman found support from the strings of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu, just across the Baltic See from Latvia. For the other works on the disc he is however joined by Latvian colleagues and friends. These include the violinist Sandis Šteinbergs who appears in the duo Summer Dances, one of Vasks’ more carefree and buoyant pieces. This recent work in seven brief movements is, in the composer’s own words, the musical equivalent of a naïvist painting. In comparison, the Piano Quartet from 2001 is one of his longest and most imposing chamber works. Beginning with a perfect fifth in the piano, it takes the listener on an emotional roller-coaster, through hectic dances and dramatic songs to a typical ‘Vasks ending’ with a distant light offering a tempered hope. In the quartet, Vadim Gluzman leads an ensemble consisting of Ilze Klava, Reinis Birznieks, and Angela Yoffe.

REVIEWS:

Distant Light is surely the most recorded violin concerto by a living composer. Gluzman plays with fervor, overt fortitude, and a lively vibrato.

– Gramophone

If you do not know or own recordings of “Distant Light” and the Piano Quartet, Gluzman and colleagues will fill that gap nicely. This disc is recommended without hesitation.

– Fanfare

Originally a double bass player, Peteris Vasks has a special fondness for the string family, and has composed numerous works for string ensembles of various sizes. Some of his most widely performed works are for string orchestra, among them Musica dolorosa and the violin concertos Distant Light and Lonely Angel. Another one is his Symphony for Strings ‘Voices’, composed in 1991, as his native Latvia, along with Estonia and Lithuania, was breaking free from the crumbling Soviet Union. In a note on the work, Vasks has written: ‘… the new beginning was difficult. The symphony speaks of my essential, most meaningful themes. About life. About eternity. About conscience.’ On this recording, ‘Voices’ is performed by Vasks’ compatriots in the eminent Sinfonietta Riga, making their first appearance on BIS. The Sinfonietta has an ongoing collaboration with Maxim Rysanov, as soloist as well as conductor, and Rysanov here has occasion to show both sides of his musicianship, as he conducts the ensemble as well as performs the solo part in Vasks’ recent Concerto for Viola. The concerto is dedicated to Rysanov, who premièred it in 2016 and now presents it on album for the first time. In four movements, the work demonstrate a characteristic feature of Vasks’ style, the strong contrasts between translucent serenity and deep despair that remind us of the ephemeral and complex world we live in.

REVIEW:

Peteris Vasks has a distinctive voice, and his works always deliver emotionally. The two compositions on this release are no exception — though they are exceptional.

In the concerto, Vasks plays to his strengths. The music slowly swirls in gossamer strands, coalescing from time to time for greater emotional impact. Vasks also weaves in folk-like melodies that temporarily ground the music. Maxim Rysanov’s playing gets to the emotional center of Vasks’ music. At times it’s almost heartbreakingly beautiful.

– WTJU-FM (VA; Ralph Graves)

Peteris Vasks makes an important point that every listener to his music should know: every one of his compositions is about Latvia, in some way tells the story of his homeland. Another thing you should know is that he believes that music—especially choral music—and poetry have been a major unifying factor in his country’s long fight for cultural survival and national identity against severe oppression, particularly under the Soviet regime. These points are especially important here, because this new recording features works—with one exception—set to texts by Latvian poets.

There’s not really any agenda here; rather, these 11 pieces touch on various aspects of Latvian experience: tradition (Our Mother’s Names), landscape (Plainscapes), events and symbols (Birth), seasons (Summer), folklore (The Tomtit’s Message), and sadness and hope (Silent Songs). As they were written over a period of more than 30 years—the earliest is from 1977, the most recent from 2008—the works exhibit some obvious stylistic differences; yet there’s an underlying consistency to the treatment of and respect for the texts. Whether the music ventures more into flights of dissonance, extremes of dynamics and texture, and unconventional vocal “effects” (The Tomtit’s Message; Our Mother’s Names; Birth) or stays pretty close to more traditional harmonic and textural structures, owing not a little to jazz and perhaps to Poulenc and Messiaen (Silent Songs; Summer), there’s a strong sense of linguistic resonance—no matter that we don’t speak the language at hand. And in many of these pieces Vasks has managed to capture a combined sense of melancholy—a knowing of what has been suffered and lost—with an ever-present optimism that infuses the Latvian spirit, that has kept the people and the culture alive through very hard times.

The title work doesn’t even have a text—the choral part is a vocalise—but it’s perhaps the most “Latvian” of all the pieces on the program. Accompanied by violin and cello, this 16-minute masterpiece is like a film without need for a video component, a survey of a landscape without requiring the observer’s physical presence. Vasks’ aim here was a meditation on “the landscapes of Zemgale, where the lowlands are endless.” We close our eyes and we are lulled into a kind of floating journey across fields and hills, “resounding in silence and eternity”; birds singing, the sun rising. It’s neither gimmicky special effects nor gratuitous sound-painting; but we know where we are.

And ultimately, in a purely musical sense, the Latvian connection falls away (as with all great music, its original premise or context at some point becomes less significant) and we appreciate the music for its sheer invention and unique stylistic character. Vasks is nothing if not honest and unwavering in his view of music and his place in its grander scheme. And he’s fortunate to have the world-class Latvian Radio Choir as an advocate for his work. Wow. This choir could sing anything, and in this case they’ve chosen some pretty exceptional yet difficult music and made it come alive interpretively, but also in terms of its clear, articulate, vibrant sound. Of course there are many types of choral music fans, and among them are those that prefer to remain in the distant past; but if you really care to know what’s happening here, today, you owe it to yourself to hear this.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

All the works of the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks on this release are written for string orchestra: the three connected compositions "Musica serena" (2015), "Musica dolorosa" (1983) and "Musica appassionata" (2002), and also Vasks' Concerto No 2 for Violoncello and Strings, also known as "Klatbutne" (“Presence”, 2011/12). Vasks' three instrumental pieces here are light-hearted, tragic (dealing with the death of his sister as well as the political situation in Latvia at the time), and passionate, providing an overview of the diversity of his work across a timespan of almost three decades. His deeply spiritual Cello Concerto, which was premiered by Sol Gabetta and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and conducted by Candida Thompson in Ghent, refers in its title to the pure being of his music - which is present, without distance, in every movement of the bow. The beauty that Peteris Vasks evokes in his works would not be possible without the experience of violence and cruelty in this world. He grew up in a country deprived of liberty, and He grew up in a country deprived of liberty, and because of his faith and his artistic convictions he was subjected to reprisals from Russian cultural doctrine. His father, a Baptist pastor, was considered an "enemy of the state", and his homeland was under Soviet control. As a result Vasks developed a vision of freedom and subtle protest in his music. Vasks' expressive, direct and often deliberately simple music quickly became the mouthpiece of the long-suppressed Latvian people, giving the nation a proud voice that can be heard worldwide. Today, alongside Arvo Pärt and Erkki Sven-Tüür, Peteris Vasks is one of the most famous composers from the Baltic states of the former Soviet Union. On April 16, 2021, the music world will celebrate his 75th birthday.

REVIEW:

The Munich Radio Orchestra are experienced with Vasks’ music, having already made one recording of it. Cello soloists, Uladzimir Sinkevich is from Belarus and is the orchestra’s principal cellist. He is a fine player. Anna-Maria Palii is a member of the Baravian Radio Chorus and also has a solo operatic career. She handles her short part well. The conductor, Ivan Repušić, is from Croatia and has been the chief conductor of the orchestra since 2017. He secures excellent results. These performances are assured, lyrical and idiomatic. It so happens that they were made under the restrictions due to the Covid pandemic, with social distancing and so on for the performers. I note this only as a point of interest; you would not know it from the performances, except perhaps because of the obvious commitment of all concerned to the whole enterprise. The recording is very good and the sleeve notes are helpful. There are other recordings of all these works, but not grouped together. This is a very worthwhile recording.

– MusicWeb International