V.Tormis: Curse Upon Iron, Incantation for a Stormy Sea, Once We Will Reappear, etc

日本の合唱界でもおなじみの作品をスウェーデンの名門オルフェイ・ドレンガルの演奏で

SACDハイブリッド盤。エストニアの作曲家ヴェリヨ・トルミス(1930年-)の名は、わが国でも合唱界で広く知られています。彼の合唱作品はエストニアの伝承音楽に基づくものが多く、独特の音世界を作り上げています。代表作の「鉄への呪い」は1972 年の作ですが、そのあふれる原始的シャーマニズムゆえソ連時代は演奏禁止とされていました。ほとんどワールドミュージックのようで、伊福部昭の声楽作品を思わす骨太な霊的エネルギーに満ち溢れています。スウェーデンの名門合唱団オルフェイ・ドレンガルは驚きの巧さで、決定盤の風格を示しています。女性指揮者セシーリア・リューディンゲル・アリーンは自らシャーマン太鼓を打ち鳴らし、巫女的存在も担っています。
キングインターナショナル

Veljo Tormis, probably Estonia's best-known composer after Arvo Part, has devoted the bulk of his energies to choral music, with a catalog of over 500 choral works. He is a real maverick; his primal-sounding pieces can't be easily traced to any previous compositional school or tradition. He often takes Estonian folk song or folk-like material and transforms it into distinctive, powerfully evocative music, usually driven by rhythmic propulsiveness. He uses extended vocal techniques -- shouting, whistling, chanting, whispering, glissandi, throat singing -- in ways that make them sound not modern and innovative but visceral, organic expressions of feelings too primitive and raw to be conveyed through traditional singing. Raua needmine (Curse Upon Iron) is probably Tormis' most frequently performed piece outside Estonia, and it's easy to see why; it's starkly dramatic with a profound monumentality that evokes the enactment of an ancient shamanic ritual, and it has memorable rhythmic drive. Many of the texts the composer sets are in fact incantations taken from Baltic folklore and the Finnish epic, The Kalevala. The album also includes examples of Tormis' more conventional choral works, such as Kolm mul oli kaunist sona, which uses tonal harmonies and is more strongly melodic than his more characteristic pieces. The recording features performances by Orphei Drangar, a Swedish men's choir founded in 1853, led by Cecilia Rydinger Alin. The choir sings this daunting music with rugged assurance and the high, almost reckless energy it requires. The album makes a good introduction of Tormis' music for men's voices, and should be of strong interest to anyone who loves modern choral music. The sounds of BIS' super audio hybrid CD is clean and detailed, but doesn't have the presence and immediacy to allow music of this magnitude to make its maximum impact.