Latvian Radio Choir

Mate saule is Mother Sun – and Peteris Vasks worships her. Any meeting or interview with the Latvian composer is likely to end up with a tramp through the forests or a swim in the Baltic. And much of Vasks’s music is a meditation on the eternal attributes of Nature, in a continuum of life which stretches beyond the fever and the fret of his own fast-changing world. Mate saule is an early choral work, its voices oscillating like the shimmer of a sun slowly rising from the horizon, and lit by flares and fragments of chant. Vasks’s choral music has tended to be instrumental in texture, focusing on the overall mood rather than the specific verbal activity of any text he is setting. The ‘white diatonicism’ of Mate saule gives way to more disturbed, aleatoric harmonies and more disruptive textures as political change and human turmoil take centre stage in the late Eighties in Zemgale, a song about the anguished dilemmas of exile. This is a subject at the very core of the work of the Polish-Lithuanian writer Czeslaw Milosz (now resident in the USA); and the three poems set by Vasks in 1994 receive their world premiere recording. They were originally written for the Hilliard Ensemble: here the excellent Latvian Radio Choir works with concentrated focus on the spare harmonies and elusive metres which recreate the wonder of three transient moments out of time.

This year marks the 90th birthday of Krzysztof Penderecki (1933–2020), one of the most prominent 21st Century Polish composers. Sacred themes and texts surround the creative work of Penderecki, including many of his large-scale works. This album by the award-winning Latvian Radio Choir under Sigvards Klava consists the majority of his impressive sacred a cappella choral works from five different decades and which are mainly written in Latin. These deeply religious choral works are modern classics in choral repertoire. Recent album by the choir, featuring choral works by John Cage, received nomination for the Gramophone Awards 2023.

Latvian Radio Choir’s new album conducted by Sigvards Kļava marks the international debut of composer Alfred Momotenko (b. 1970). Momotenko was born in Lviv, Ukraine, in 1970. He studied at the Sochi College of Arts and later percussion at the Moscow State University of Culture and Art. In 1990, the political situation having changed, Momotenko moved to the Netherlands where he continued his studies at the Brabant Conservatory and at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague. Momotenko’s timeless choral works continue the centuries old great tradition of choral works combining them with contemporary language, a blend most recently exemplified by the likes of Alfred Schnittke.

This new album release by the Latvian Radio Choir and conductor Sigvards Klava on Ondine is devoted to choral works by the legendary American composer and music pioneer John Cage (1912-1992), one of the most iconic figures in 20th Century Avantgarde music.

With this new album the award-winning Latvian Radio Choir conducted by Sigvards Klava is turning its attention to the music of Alexander Grechaninov (1864–1956), one of the masters of Russian liturgic music. Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigil is a fitting continuation to the choir’s albums of sacred music by Sergey Rachmaninov and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Together with the two latter names, Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigil, completed in 1912, belongs to the central repertoire of Russian liturgic music. Unlike the Vigils by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, Grechaninov’s work was written primarily for concert use. Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigilis a bright, optimistic work full of light.

With this new album the award-winning Latvian Radio Choir conducted by Sigvards Klava is turning its attention to the music of Alexander Grechaninov (1864–1956), one of the masters of Russian liturgic music. Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigil is a fitting continuation to the choir’s albums of sacred music by Sergey Rachmaninov and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Together with the two latter names, Grechaninov’s All-Night Vigil belongs to the central repertoire of Russian liturgic music.

This new album release by the Latvian Radio Choir and conductor Sigvards Klava on Ondine is devoted to choral works by the legendary American composer and music pioneer John Cage (1912-1992), one of the most iconic figures in 20th Century Avantgarde music.