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Tormis: Songs - Stephen Layton, Holst Singers (2008)

Posted By: peotuvave
Tormis: Songs - Stephen Layton, Holst Singers (2008)

Tormis: Songs - Stephen Layton, Holst Singers (2008)
EAC Rip | Flac (Image + cue + log) | 1 CD | Full Scans | 233 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Hyperion | Catalog Number: 67601

Veljo Tormis is—along with Arvo Pärt—Estonia’s most famous living composer, holding an almost mystic status in his home country. He is also the passionate and practical torch-bearer for folk-singing revival, and the integration of an ancient cultural inheritance into thoroughly modern, post-Soviet lives. Interestingly, he trained at the Moscow conservatoire and was steeped in Soviet instruction during his early musical life. His music is almost all written for choirs; few composers have ever been so committed to one genre. Tormis’s choral specialism marks him out from Bartók, Kodály, Vaughan Williams and Grainger, whose pioneering interest in folksong was ultimately less purist given their use of the tunes alone in instrumental or orchestral works: for Tormis, the words and the music are inseparable.

Composer: Veljo Tormis
Conductor: Stephen Layton
Orchestra/Ensemble: Holst Singers

Reviews: It's hard to imagine a composer "retiring" (as good an idea as it might be for some we can think of), but that's just what the Estonian Veljo Tormis did in 2000 at age 70. And the more of his music we hear–and thankfully, that's getting easier to do these days–the more sorry we are that he's not continuing to write new works. For choral fans this disc is a treasure, and I'd be surprised if it doesn't become an oft-played favorite. The reason: the music is invariably tuneful, harmonically inventive, and tonal, the rhythms primordial and born of both text and culture, all accomplished with an assured command of choral writing, of how to make music of the most compelling kind with nothing but voices.

Tormis' well-known "evangelism" for his homeland's folksongs is vividly on display in many of the works featured here (the program also contains several "original", pre-folksong-period pieces); but as we have heard before (type Q4756 and Q8046 in Search Reviews), the composer is far from an "arranger" of these tunes. He creates entirely new entities out of them while still preserving the original song, the inflection and meaning of its language, and what I can only describe as its cultural ambience. You hear the music and you can tell where you are–and in some cases, what the song is about–without knowing the language itself.

Evocative is another apt description of Tormis' choral music, especially in his settings of Estonian "game songs", or "The Wave Rolls", the several lullabies, and in the striking sounds of the "Herding calls". Many of these works demonstrate Tormis' very clever use of ostinatos and other repetitive devices–for instance the hypnotic effect in the lullaby "Wee winkie mouse" or the scurrying then rolling rush of clouds in "Clouds are racing" and the lilting, dancing "Daughters of the Meadow Matron" as they "go swaying merrily and playing…on blades of bent grass." Tormis also uses harmony to create special moods, as in the jazz-influenced "Pale light" and "The finger-binding game".

There's so much here to enjoy–and play over again–and it's remarkable how Stephen Layton and his Holst Singers have so convincingly captured the flavor and character of the music and language–we usually only hear native choirs in this repertoire. The sound, from London's All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak, is just perfect–and Meurig Bowen's excellent notes complete an all-around first-rate release. This immediately joins my "best discs of the year" list!

Tracklisting:

1. Singing Aboard Ship by Veljo Tormis
Conductor: Stephen Layton
Orchestra/Ensemble: Holst Singers
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1983; Estonia
Length: 4 Minutes 59 Secs.

2. Songs (2) after Ernst Enno by Veljo Tormis
Conductor: Stephen Layton
Orchestra/Ensemble: Holst Singers
Period: Contemporary
Written: 1948

3. Estonian Game Songs (3) by Veljo Tormis
Conductor: Stephen Layton
Orchestra/Ensemble: Holst Singers
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1972/1992; Estonia

4. Songs (3) from Epic "Kalevipoeg" by Veljo Tormis
Conductor: Stephen Layton
Orchestra/Ensemble: Holst Singers
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1960; Estonia

5. Forgotten Peoples: Livonian Heritage by Veljo Tormis
Conductor: Stephen Layton
Orchestra/Ensemble: Holst Singers
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1970

6. Autumn Landscapes by Veljo Tormis
Conductor: Stephen Layton
Orchestra/Ensemble: Holst Singers
Period: 20th Century

7. Estonian Lullabies (4) by Veljo Tormis
Conductor: Stephen Layton
Orchestra/Ensemble: Holst Singers
Period: 20th Century

8. Herding Calls by Veljo Tormis
Conductor: Stephen Layton
Orchestra/Ensemble: Holst Singers
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1982; Estonia
Length: 8 Minutes 2 Secs.

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 16. January 2013, 0:15

Holst Singers, Stephen Layton / Tormis - Choral Music

Used drive : HL-DT-STDVDRAM GSA-4083N Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
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Read offset correction : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 896 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 %source%


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
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2 | 2:35.10 | 5:21.64 | 11635 | 35773
3 | 7:56.74 | 2:14.47 | 35774 | 45870
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Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename J:\New Music\Tormis - Choral Music\Tormis - Choral Music.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 4.4 X
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 4435ECE5
Copy CRC 4435ECE5
Copy OK

No errors occurred

End of status report

==== Log checksum 2897535E1A7F2AC3E9F720A3CE3C036DBEA85FB4EDC6E7DA393998E83F8E695C ====



Thanks to the original releaser