GALINA GRIGORIEVA (b.1962): Svyatki, Salve Regina (w/Theatre of Voices and Yxus Quartet), Diptych, Lament for Recorder (Conrad Steinmann), Nature morte, In paradisum.

Description: Grigorieva's deeply felt, uplifting religious music speaks movingly and beautifully with an individual voice. Her idiom has a close affinity with Orthodox church music and earlier Eastern European folk idioms. The early cycle Svjatki alternates exultant hymns of praise and radiant senerity, with interjections of a rough-hewn vernacular style which is at once startling and confrontational, demanding attention to the meaning of the text. The more recent works, such as the lovely Salve Regina from 2013, the serene Diptych (2011) and the gorgeous, glowing In Paradisum (2012) are more in the mold of 'Baltic new spirituality' in which Estonia seems to excel. 2008’s Nature Morte, setting dark, unsettling poems by Joseph Brodsky, shows the composer's versatility; here, more modernist choral methods dramatically set the scene and provide an atmospheriic backdrop for the eloquent, anguished, dissonant harmony and aching, unresolved, radiantly beautiful tension of the sung text. Texts and translations included. Russian (transliterated)-English, Latin-English and English texts. Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir; Paul Hillier.