Jab Tak Hai Jaan

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 compositions for violin and piano recorded here were written between 1945 and 1960. Although Kurt Albrecht, Mátyás Seiber and Joachim Schweppe never met and their biographies took very different turns, they ultimately appear connected through their contemporaries. National Socialism and the Second World War left their mark on the lives of all three composers.

Hai-Kyung Suh, a world-renowned romantic pianist, has lived a difficult, thorny life. The imprint of her experience would be expected to drive her to profoundly express the sentiments of Schubert's music, which sublimates sadness and tragedy into music.