Tõnu Kõrvits: Mirror Anja Lechner, Tõnu Kaljuste

• 1 Reflections from a Plain 05:07
• 2 Labyrinth I 03:11
• 3 Labyrinth II 01:41
• 4 Labyrinth III 02:15
• 5 Labyrinth IV 02:31
• 6 Labyrinth V 02:42
• 7 Labyrinth VI 02:31
• 8 Labyrinth VII 04:35
• 9 Plainland Song 04:55
• 10 Dream I 05:43
• 11 Dream II 02:42
• 12 Dream III 03:00
• 13 Dream IV 02:31
• 14 Dream V 01:38
• 15 Dream VI 03:52
• 16 Dream VII 04:12
• 17 The Last Ship 06:26
• 18 Song 03:26
• Total Runtime 01:02:58

Info for Tõnu Kõrvits: Mirror

„Mirror“ is the first ECM New Series album from Estonian composer Tõnu Kõrvitz (born 1969), who emphasizes his links to his homeland’s music at several levels.

The album begins with a fantasy on a song by Veljo Tormis. Like the older composer, Kõrvitz has been influenced by folk song and archaic musical tradition, which find their echo in the refined and texturally-rich spectrum of his own, labyrinthine pieces. His music is well served here by the Tallin Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Tõnu Kaljuste’s assured direction and by soloist Anja Lechner.

Lechner’s cello is foregrounded in ‘Peegeldused Tasaset Maast’ (2013), ‘Laul’ (2012, revised 2013) and the album’s largest work ‘Seitsme Linnu Seitse Und’ (2009, revised 2012), a collaboration with the poet Maarja Kangro, which is both choral suite and cello concerto. In these “seven dreams of seven birds” the choir sings in Estonian and English and the cello conjures both birdsong and swooping flight. ‘Tasase Maa’ (Song of the Plainland), a fresh arrangement of a Tormis melody has Kadri Voorand as vocal soloist, supported by strings and by Tõnu Kõrvitz on kannel, the Estonian psaltery.

Anja Lechner, cello
Kadri Voorand, voice
Tõnu Kõrvits, kannel
Tallinn Chamber Orchestra
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Tõnu Kaljuste, conductor

Anja Lechner
born in Kassel, Germany, studied with Heinrich Schiff and Janos Starker. She has performed as soloist with orchestras including the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Slowakische Philharmonie, and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, and plays chamber music with partners including pianists Alexei Lubimov, Silke Avenhaus and Kirill Gerstein, cellist Agnès Vesterman, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and clarinetist Reto Bieri. Lechner has premiered compositions by Tigran Mansurian, Valentin Silvestrov, Tõnu Kõrvits and Annette Focks amongst others. For 18 years she was the cellist of the Rosamunde Quartet, whose acclaimed ECM New Series albums embraced a scope of music from Joseph Haydn to Thomas Larcher. Her most recent recordings include Mansurian’s Quasi Parlando and Double Concerto with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. In preparation is an album of solos and duos with Agnès Vesterman, playing compositions of Silvestrov.

At home in all aspects of classical music, she is also fluent in diverse improvisational traditions, and has a long-running collaboration with bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi – documented in the film El Encuentro and on albums including Ojos Negros and Navidad de Los Andes.

Tõnu Kaljuste
is the conductor who founded the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (EPCC) (1981), the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra (TCO) (1993), the Nargen Opera project theatre (2004) and the Nargen Festival (2006). He is the winner of several prizes for recordings (Diapason d'Or de l'Annee 2000, Cannes Classical Award, Edison Prize, Brit Award 2003, Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance 2014).

Since 2010, Tonu Kaljuste has worked as a professor at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and as the Head of its Conducting Department. Kaljuste has previously been a lecturer at the Tallinn Conservatory and a conductor of the Estonian National Opera. He has worked with many orchestras and choirs all over the world. During the 1990’s, next to his work with the EPCC and the TCO, he was also the principal conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir and the Netherlands Chamber Choir. Since 2001 he has worked internationally as a freelance conductor. He has been appointed a member of the Royal Music Academy of Sweden and has been awarded the Japanese ABC Music Fund Award, the International Robert Edler Prize for Choral Music, the First Prize of the 2004 Estonian Cultural Fund and the 2010 Performance Prize of the Estonian Music Council.

Kaljuste has dedicated a major part of his work to the music of Estonian composers (Heino Eller, Tõnu Kõrvits, Arvo Pärt, Veljo Tormis, and Erkki-Sven Tüür), whose compositions he has recorded for the ECM Record label. He has also recorded all of the Vespers and Litanies of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as well as the church music of Antonio Vivaldi for the Carus Verlag record label. He has worked in collaboration with composers such as Alfred Schnittke, György Kurtag, Krzysztof Penderecki, Erik Bergman, Giya Kancheli, Sven-David Sandström, Knut Nystedt, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Brett Dean, R. Murray Schafer, a.o.

In May 2015, Tõnu Kaljuste will conduct the World Premiere staging of Robert Wilson's and Arvo Pärt's musical theatrical presentation of Adam's Passion which will be filmed for future world-wide theatrical presentation along with a documentary of the production process.

International engagements during the 2014/15 season include touring appearances with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and guest appearances with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Chorus, the Malmö Opera Orchestra and Chorus, the Slovenian Chamber Choir and Philharmonic Orchestra, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra a.o.

Booklet for Tõnu Kõrvits: Mirror