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'When composing a work, I give myself to the temptation of the creative work -- a journey, whose twisting roads persistently, but convincingly, bring me to the final sounds of the score.
'Only then do I exhale,' says Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds (born 1977 at Priekule) whose orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal and piano works have been performed in Europe and the USA.
Esenvalds will spend two...
Hyperion has done it again, with this stunning album of mostly sacred choral works by the younger-generation Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds, perfectly performed by Stephen Layton’s ever-welcome Polyphony and Carolyn Sampson, one of our finest sopranos— supported by the strings of the Britten Sinfonia. Layton, like many of his top-tier colleagues, can’t resist the remarkable flood of new music...
Within seconds I knew I was going to adore this CD and the music of Eriks Ešenvalds … This is a performance of considerable impact, not least in the second movement when the electrifying choral cries of 'Crucify' dissolve so magically into calm, plainchant-inspired music above which Carolyn Sampson floats with angelic luminosity … If the music wasn't so utterly gorgeous, I would happily devote...
De Letse componist Eriks Ešenvalds speelt een wonderlijk spel met de beleving van gezongen tekst. Er is volop tekst die we kunnen verstaan en begrijpen, maar Ešenvalds voegt eigenzinnig verschuivende harmonieën en etherisch voortspinnende melodieën toe die de tijd stil lijken te zetten en die contact met de gezongen taal haast irrelevant maakt. Met name in Passion and Resurrection ontstaat een...
Polyphony and Hyperion Records have done more to broaden our choral taste than any other choir or record company in this country. After excellent recent surveys of Gabriel Jackson, Morten Lauridsen, Paweł Łukaszewski and Eric Whitacre, the second `greatest choir in the world` (according to Gramophone) has released a disc of music by the Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds. Unlike the diaphanous...
Ešenvalds responds to the purpose of the words he sets, occupying similar choral territory to the likes of Whitacre and Shchedrin, character rather than ego dominating … Ešenvalds favours the upper voices, giving them luminous, floating melodies against backgrounds that set them in shimmering relief or throw mysterious, penumbrous cloaks around them. Polyphony typically balances beauty of timbre...