Bonne annee to all listers,

Nadine Meylan-Meertens <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Lately, I found some very interesting music by Peteris Vasks, a lettonian
>composer.  ...  I find his orchestral music quite interesting, but his
>chamber music reaches such beauty and strongness of feelings, that I cannot
>listen to his orchestral music anymore after hearing the quartets.

Vasks's music is strongly emotional, and often much less "facile" than
some commentators have tended to suggest in the past.  Apart from his piano
and chamber music, his Cello Concerto is very successful, probably more
satisfactory than the Symphony, which nevertheless can be breathtakingly
beautiful, especially in the rendition of the Ostrobothnian Chamber
Orchestra (Finlandia CD, with another real masterpiece, Balakauskas's
Ostrobothnian Symphony).  True to form, I still feel that Vasks has not
(yet?) reached the level of mastery and profoundity to be found in Kenins,
another Latvian-born composer, but both are vastly different, and there is
indeed enough room for a wealth of outstanding Baltic composers, if majors
care to take interest in them.  Meanwhile, local recordings are already
providing much food for thought and delight.

P.S. The CD reference can be found in the classique-fr "index", still under
construction:

   http://club.voila.fr/docvault/classique-fr/discog.html

Best wishes,

Thanh-Tam Le
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