Presto Recordings of the Year
Finalist 2023

Collegium Musical Chamber Choir, Endrik Üksvärav

Tüür: Trigolosson Trishagion
Tüür: Missa Brevis
Tüür: Omnia mutantu
Tüür: Canticum Canticorum Caritatis
Tüür: Rändaja õhtulaul

This album contains a selection of key a cappella choral works by Erkki-Sven Tüür. For the Estonian composer born in 1959, words and music are intimately linked. The number of syllables in a word, the position of the tonic accent, and the word as a cultural phenomenon with a definite meaning are of essential importance. This can be heard in the Kyrie of his Missa Brevis (2013) where, like a spiral, the polyphony of the voices is transformed into a chordal texture at the beginning of the ‘Christe eleison’, and then dissolves into individual voices at the second ‘Kyrie eleison’. Canticum Canticorum Caritatis (2020) is inspired by St Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians. Tüür dedicated this work to Endrik Üksvärav and Collegium Musicale, the performers on this album. The multidimensional Omnia Mutantur (2020) possesses an extremely clear structure, interweaving the famous thoughts of Ovid and Virgil about the transient nature of all things. Triglosson Trishagion (2008), indebted to the Orthodox tradition and sung in Estonian, Russian and Greek, and Wanderer’s Evening Song (2001) complete this programme, which is characterised by a meditative, interiorised approach to the composer.

"Collegium Musicale (low basses on particular great form throughout) are superb advocates. Shades of John Tavener in the Orthodox-influenced Trigolosson Trishagion, and there's something of James MacMillan in the radiant Canticum Canticorum Caritatis (inspired by St Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians)." - Presto Music, February 2023.