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The centrepiece is a stunning performance of Pēteris Vasks’s Plainscapes, three wordless linked movements, composed in 2002, and infused with a strong P�rtian flavour, with important roles for violin and cello, played here with tremendous verve by Norwegian siblings Mari and H�kon Samuelsen. This rendition is even more impressive than the Latvian Radio Choir’s recording under Sigvards Kļava for Ondine in 2012, especially in the final section, when a cinematically vivid aviary bursts into life, complete with birdcalls, string harmonics and suchlike.
The rest of the programme is of predominantly slow and smooth music, though all of the greatest interest. Francis Pott’s perfectly poised Balulalow bears many repeated hearings, as does Judith Bingham’s The darkness is no darkness, with its hints of late Vaughan Williams. Voces8’s composer-in-residence Ola Gjeilo offers a radically reharmonised revamp of Holst’s In the bleak midwinter, and there are three delicious arrangements by Geoff Lawson, the finest of which is Come wander with me, first heard inThe Twilight Zone in 1954.
Finest of all, though, is Rebecca Dale’s specially commissioned title-track, Winter. Masterful.
is remarkably evocative of past memory and future contemplation.
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