Tõnu Kõrvits (b. 1969)
Tiibade hääl (The Sound of Wings) for choir and string instruments (2022)
Pühapäevasoov (Sunday Wish) for soprano, high voices and string orchestra (2020/2022)
Laur Eensalu (viola); Marianne Pärna (alto); Yena Choi (soprano); Triin Sakermaa (soprano); Maarja Helstein (alto); Mariliis Tiiter (soprano)
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Tallinn Chamber Orchestra/Risto Joost
rec. 2022, Tallin, Estoni
Texts and English translations included
Ondine ODE1417-2 [55]
Hearing the major piece here prompted thoughts about how the history of the last one hundred years or so could be traced through pieces of ‘serious’ music. Some were written in the contemporary heat of the moment and some recollect or conjure up passions whether still raging or just barely glowing. We could start with the symphony Die Erstes Fahrt Zeppelin by August Bungert (come on cpo …). How about Kurt Weill’s ‘cantata’ Der Ozeanflug: Lindberg Flight which marked a celebrity event in history. Then there’s Holbrooke’s piano piece Barrage and then his Marche Funebre identified as “in memory of my friend Captain Robert Scott”. Arthur Somervell’s only symphony Thalassa has a second movement ‘Elegy’ dedicated to “…Scott, killed in action near the South Pole 28 March 1912…”). Frank Bridge’s little orchestral Lament marked the loss of the Lusitania. Cecil Coles’ piece, recorded by Hyperion and called Behind the Lines should not be forgotten. Neither should Thomas Dunhill’s orchestral Serbia (not yet recorded), Bliss’s Morning Heroes and Gurney’s song In Flanders. Vaughan Williams’ Thanksgiving for Victory presented one take on the great events of 1945 while Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima became a memorable cheerleader for the atonal extremities. Forward then to Karl Jenkins’ comparatively recent Aberfan piece. 9-11 has resulted in any number of pieces including those by Reich, Kilar and Blackford. COVID has also left its mark in music. Estonian Tõnu Kõrvits now enters the lists with The Sound of Wings.
Kõrvits has written a lot and much of it has been recorded by Ondine. We are assured that his Moorland Elegies (review), You Are Light and Morning (review) and The Sound of Wings (recorded here) form a kind of a trilogy but can be enjoyed separately.
Kõrvits’ two works from the 2020s on the present CD are, in one case, extended; the other is quite brief. The former (‘The Sound of Wings’) for soloists, choir and string instruments, inspired by the mysterious disappearance of pioneer flier Amelia Earhart, is presented in eleven tracks. Ondine’s notes claim that the music is “rich with delicate atmosphere possessing a particularly Northern feel combined with a romantic and Impressionistic touch.” That seems about right. There’s little or nothing here to frighten the lieges, yet Kõrvits’ brings freshness to tropes that feel familiar. He gives them a new spin. Rather like the music of Marjan Mozetich this music inhabits and gives voice to regions of angelic eternity. At the start of ‘The Sound of Wings’ the solo viola seems to coast close to Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending. The statements are touching and fey. They feel like Finzi but extruded through Gorecki. This can be heard several times in this piece and certainly in its finale. In track 5, ‘One Love’, the alto voice is deeply affecting and carries the movement.
There is an irresistible sway to this example of Kõrvits’ music. Ideas are gently touched in and glow rather than dazzle, even if there are times when things comes awfully close to saccharine or the whilom world of Radio 2, the Mike Sammes Singers and “Sing Something Simple”. Some hypnotic echoing singing between solo female voices can be heard in track 8; very inventive and one of the most affecting moments in this work. You sense a link with the enchanting music of Michael Nyman for the “Prospero’s Books” film. Here is a composer who goes with the grain rather than defying it. Like RVW in the Tallis Fantasia this score has its moments of soaring “notable ecstasy”. In track 10 the Larks “ascendant” are re-harnessed and rise with healing in their wings. The finale (tr. 11) bows out with a solo viola in an echo of the beginning. This sense of philosophical pilgrimage and ecstatic absorption makes you wish that Kõrvits would next turn to the books of the aviator, adventurer, lyricist and philosopher, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (“Nightflight” and “Wind, Sand and Stars”).
The little makeweight, ‘Sunday Wish’ is about five minutes in duration and, again, plays catch-as-catch-can with super-sweetened sugar but without the freshness and vigour of ‘The Sound of Wings’.
The performances and recording come across as exemplary. The ‘sleeve-notes’ are in English with the sung words in Estonian and in English translation.
Rob Barnett
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