Vox

The Suspended Harp of Babel features revelatory performances of the choral music of Estonian composer Cyrillus Kreek (1889-1962). Kreek’s pieces, incorporating graceful settings of psalms and folk hymns, are juxtaposed here with instrumental fantasias and interludes created for this recording by Marco Ambrosini. Under the direction of Jan-Eike Tulve, the Vox Clamantis choir - whose previous ECM recordings have addressed works of Arvo Pärt, Erkki-Sven Tüür and Helena Tulve as well as Gregorian chant- prove to be ideal interpreters of a music poised between old and new. The Suspended Harp of Babel was recorded in Tallinn’s Transfiguration Church in August 2018.

The composer Friedrich Gernsheim, who was highly respected during his lifetime, is largely unknown today. Yet, especially in his choral compositions, he broke away from traditional ideas of form at an early stage and was thus ahead of many of his contemporaries. With this recording, Tristan Meister and Vox Quadrata have set themselves the goal of bringing the forgotten choral works of the Jewish composer back into the public consciousness.

Vox Bigerri est un ensemble de musique vocale originaire de Tarbes et dédié au chant polyphonique traditionnel principalement des Pyrénées et d'Occitanie.

Alexander Campkin is renowned as a leading young choral composer who has been commissioned by some of the most prestigious musical organisations in Britain. True Light reveals the energy and majestic sound world that he commands, as well as qualities of reflective intimacy. His Missa Brevis was inspired by seeing a beam of sunlight pierce a cloud of moving incense, the resultant music being built around a sustained pitch, ebbing and flowing. In The First Kiss, he sets two poignant and daring Epigrams by the Greek philosopher Strato.