Le compositeur Veljo Tormis et le chef Tõnu Kaljuste se sont bien connus, le chœur et l’orchestre figurant parmi les meilleurs ensembles de chambre du monde, de quoi offrir à cette musique lointaine de soufflé d’universalité qui la rend soudain familière. […] des configurations multiples et virtuoses, évoluant sur la ligne de crête entre l’inconnu et l’intime.
MDM, La Libre Belgique
Partly because the album covers such a long period of time, partly because Kaljuste has taken some music originally written for choir and arranged it for orchestra, and partly because Tormis wrote music of varying styles and moods, there is an impressive variety of music to be found in this collection. […] It’s a labor of love, a lovingly performed and beautifully recorded labor of love.
Karl W. Nehring, Classical Candor
Tormis was influenced by the Baltic minimalists, but he did not come to the style as a response to serialism; instead, his music grew out of the use of Estonian folk music, refined and purified. Much of his music is choral. The title ‘Reminiscentiae’ started out in that form, but the orchestral arrangement here is delightful. It offers a kind of ‘Estonian Four Seasons,’ made up of fragmentary reminiscences of weather scenes, each about a minute long […] All the pieces relate to Tormis' childhood reminiscences in some way, but the theme is treated in a variety of ways […] Some of the choral pieces have unusual spoken passages. The performances by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra under their longtime conductor, Tõnu Kaljuste, are ideal, and the production is by ECM founder Manfred Eicher himself. A wonderful collection of music by a composer worth knowing better.
James Manheim, All Music
Together with Arvo Pärt and Erkki-Sven Tüür, Veljo Tormis is probably the best known Estonian composer. He primarily was a choral composer with more than 500 works to his credit, but his oeuvre also encompassed orchestral music, film music, an opera and more. When he turned 70 in 2000 he announced that he ‘would officially draw an end to his creative career and retire’ – and he did, insofar as he never composed a new work, but spent another fifteen years editing and transcribing earlier compositions, supervising recordings etc. The result of this work is to a certain extent the contents of this disc. Tõnu Kaljuste, who collaborated with Tormis for many decades, has contributed to it. The overriding title is very telling: this is in many respects a matter of old wine in new bottles. For me, as a longstanding admirer of Tormis’ choral writing, the orchestral works came as a pleasant surprise. His choral music has a special twist that makes him stand out; his orchestral sound is also very individual. […] Those of us who admire Veljo Tormis – and we are quite a few – should order a copy without delay, and those who have not yet come under his spell, should at least give him a try.
Göran Forsling, Music Web International
This collection comprises a number of Veljo Tormis’s choral pieces, but the central work is the cycle ‘Reminiscentia’, choral settings arranged for string orchestra. This gives them a a very different atmosphere from their vocal originals, since they no longer depend on the text as springboard for the musical narratives but instead give the appearance of a greater abstraction […] And this is proof of the composer’s mastery of musical structure and textural variety, for there is not a single piece in this unpredictable cycle that seems compromised by the absence of text. […] A provocative album containing carefully planned reminisences of a true original.
Ivan Moody, Gramophone
Wirklich faszinierend wird Tormis’ Musik, weil sie sich in Klang und Wort permanent zur Modernen Kunst hin öffnet. Exemplarisch geschieht dies im ersten Stück des Albums ‘Tornikell minu külas’ (Die Turmglocke in meiner Heimat) nach einem ins Estnische zurückübersetzten Text von Fernando Pessoa, in dem die alles andere als ‘heile Welt’ der Heimat von Tod und Zerstörung gezeichnet ist – ‘like ruins in the moon light, ’ wie es im Text heißt. Weniger doppelbödig zeigt sich Tomis in den vier Zyklen aus ‘Reminiscentiae’ für Orchester, die, beginnend mit dem Herbst, die vier Jahreszeiten zum Thema haben und stilistisch an die Werke des Letten Peteris Vasks erinnern. Die estnischen Interpreten könnten ’ihre’ Musik schöner und intensive kaum darbieten. Top!
Burkhard Schäfer, Fono Forum (Five stars)
Much of his music is choral. The title ‘Reminiscentiae’ started out in that form, but the orchestral arrangement here is delightful. It offers a kind of ‘Estonian Four Seasons,’ made up of fragmentary reminiscences of weather scenes, each about a minute long (sample the uncanny ‘Northern Lights’ movement from the Winter Patterns section). […] All the pieces relate to Tormis' childhood reminiscences in some way, but the theme is treated in a variety of ways; sample the closing ‘Helletused’ (‘Herding Calls’), which hardly resembles anything else out there. […] The performances by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra under their longtime conductor, Tõnu Kaljuste, are ideal, and the production is by ECM founder Manfred Eicher himself. A wonderful collection of music by a composer worth knowing better.
James Manheim, All Music
This fine album celebrates the fruitful creative partnership between Estonian composer Veljo Tormis (1930-2017) and conductor Tõnu Kaljuste. […] The voices of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir have this music in their blood; they sing for Kaljuste with impeccable commitment, attack and blend.
Philip Reed, Choir & Organ (Five stars)
Persönliches und kollektives Gedächtnis für die nationale Kultur in Estland waren für den Chorkomponisten Veljo Tormis eine untrennbare Einheit. Ob in der Betrachtung ‘Die Turmglocke eines Dorfes’, symbolisch für resistenten Glauben und in den klaren Stimmen zugleich liturgisch und suggestiv, den ‘Melancholischen Liedern’ mit nachtrauernden Kindheits-Sujets oder dem klangpoetischen Jahreszeiten-Zyklus ’Reminiscentiae’ für Streicher und Solisten: Sein langjähriger Förderer und Gefährte Tõnu Kaljuste ist unerschütterliche Premium-Instanz zur Präsentation dieses einzigartigen estnischen Vokalerbes.
Hans-Dieter Grünefeld, Neue Musikzeitung
