Gramophone Magazine
Awards Issue 2024
Editor's Choice

Latvian Radio Choir, Sigvards Klava

Vasks: Angele Dei
Auznieks: Sensus
Paidere: Magnificat
Dzenitis: Om, Lux Aeterna
Dzenitis: Prayer
Ratniece: Nighttime Light
Vasks: Actus Caritatis
Viļums: The Fate of King Lear’s Children

This is the third album that the Latvian Radio Choir has released on the SKANI label with new choral music by Latvian composers. This programme was created with the intention to record trends and the state of music in 2023 as a kind of time stamp. Not quite a survey of everything that has been recently composed, it stands instead as a testimony to the creative collaboration between the Latvian Radio Choir and composers, which exists at the same time as a part of the Latvian musical space. These are new contributions to the repertoire that are of interest to professionals and all those interested in contemporary choral music.

Almost all of these works are united by their sacred texts and some higher idea, which each of the composers has brought to life by remaining faithful to his or her own style, be it multi-layered microtonality, echoes of spectral music, branching polyphonic textures, detailed explorations of sonic and rhythmic formulas, or the new simplicity and the four-part texture of the chorale. These Latvian composers seem to have a unique quality: however far they go in their experimentations with sound and reinventing the boundaries of the choir as an instrument, their compositions never lose their spiritual aspect or emotional message, approaching the revelation of the text with great sensitivity and creating a natural musical flow.

"The miracle – beyond the choir’s combination of technical expertise and human soul – is that we hear once again from composers with contrasting experiences, outlooks and technical habits who nonetheless so often manage to sound wholly Latvian." - Gramophone Magazine Awards Issue 2024