Peteris Vasks

 

Symphony No. 2 / Violin Concerto ‘Tala gaisma’ (Distant Light)

 

Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra/ John Storgards, conductor & violin

Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra/ Juha Kangas, conductor

 

Peteris Vasks is one of the leading composers in Europe.  Ondine releases an album of his music containing the world-premiere recording of Vasks Second Symphony and his Violin concerto.  John Storgards is the conductor in the Second Symphony and the violin soloist in the Violin concerto.  Storgards conducts the Tampere Philharmonic .

 

Since the newly won independence of Latvia, Vasks’ music is internationally recognized as a unique representation of Latvian culture and spirit.  In the same way as the Polish idiom can be understood through Gorecki, the Estonian through Part and the Georgian through Kancheli, all of whom Vasks considers his contemporaries in music and spirit.  Tala gaisma (Distant Light) is a concerto for violin and a large string orchestra.  The concerto, in one single movement, is one of the most meditative, ethereal concertos ever written; yet with an underlying tension and drama.  It was composed at the special request of Gidon Kremer.

 

The Second Symphony, for large orchestra, is on a rather more Brucknerian scale.  It comes after the experiences of the Cello and Violin concertos.  Like in the Cello Concerto, some more heated passages seem to point back at the atrocities of Soviet times.  Yet most of the music characteristically grows out of and returns to a state of silence.  The composer considers it to be one of his most personal, intimate works.

 

Ondine ODE10052