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Vox Clamantis

Cyrillus Kreek - The Suspended Harp of Babel

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1 Kreek: The Sun Shall Not Smite Thee  
2 Whilst Great Is Our Poverty  
3 Jacob's Dream  
4 From Heaven Above to Earth  
5 Bless the Lord, My Soul  
6 Awake, My Heart  
7 Orthodox Vespers  
8 Do the Birds Worry?  
9 Lord, I Cry unto Thee  
10 He, Who Lets God Prevail  
11 By the Rivers of Babylon  
12 The Last Dance  
13 Machaut: O Jesus, Thy Pain  
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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.

  • Henrik Odegaard's music doesn't shout. It scarcely even whispers / LIMELIGHT
    Posted At: August 9, 2023 12:00 AM
    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...
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  • On new Vox Clamatis, Henrik Odegaard's sacred compositions are a dreamy blend of modernist & ancient sounds / CD Hotlist
    Posted At: July 1, 2023 12:00 AM
    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...
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  • Vox Clamantis - Cyrillus Kreek: 'Suspended Harp of Babel' is highly responsive to the music of the Estonian language / Planet Hugill
    Posted At: July 23, 2020 12:00 AM

    To listen to the choral pieces on this disc is to hear music which is somehow familiar. The name of the composer Cyrillus Kreek may well be unfamiliar, but his use of Estonian folk-song as material and his way of treating it musically has had great influence in Estonia. To listen to this music is to hear an essential component of the DNA of much 20th century and contemporary Estonian music. The Suspended...
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  • Vox Clamantis - The Deer's Cry makes IPR's 2016 Mega-Meta-List
    Posted At: March 6, 2017 12:00 AM

    With no snafus, IPR's 2016 classical mega-meta-list gave its coveted "top choice of the year" honor to the breakout Let Me Tell You and correctly named the other albums that got 10 votes or more. But don't let anyone tell you that the meta-list picks the "best" albums, since there can be no such thing. The term "classical" covers music so inconceivably varied that any year's finest albums can...
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  • Arvo Part. The world's most performed living composer for sixth year running / estonian world
    Posted At: January 11, 2017 12:00 AM

    The Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt, has, for the sixth year in a row, been given the title of the "world's most performed living composer" by the classical music event database, Bachtrack, Estonian World can disclose. Bachtrack calculates a series of statistics each year that show the number of times the work of each composer has been performed, along with information regarding the "hardest-working" c...
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  • Vox Clamantis - The Deer's Cry / WFMT: Featured Release
    Posted At: October 6, 2016 12:00 AM

    The second ECM New Series album to fully showcase the pure-toned Estonian vocal group Vox Clamantis and its artistic director/conductor Jaan-Eik Tulve 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. Pärt: Summa (6:02); Veni Creator (2:32) from Vox Clamantis: The Deer's C...
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