Helena Tulve, Arianna Savall, Vox Clamantis, Jaan-Eik Tulve, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Olari Elts

Arboles lloran por lluvia (Trees cry for rain) is the second ECM New Series album devoted to the Estonian composer Helena Tulve, born in 1972, after Lijnen in 2008. Its five works, written between 2005 and 2008, range from an early music consort to full orchestra. Tulve explores the raw fabric of sound and timbre, and here she draws on Gregorian chant, Yemenite Jewish melody, and Sufi, Sephardic and Christian mystic poetry.

All five works were recorded in Tallinn. Reyah hadas 'ala was taped at St Nicholas Church in October 2009 and Extinction des choses vues at the Estonia Concert Hall in May 2010. The other three pieces followed at the Church of the Transfiguration in August and September 2010. Soprano Arianna Savall, who also plays triple harp, is the main soloist. Jaan-Eik Tulve conducts Vox Clamantis and Ensemble Hortus Musicus, and Olari Elts leads the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. The composer herself plays glasses and wind chimes, and Manfred Eicher produced the album.

Reyah hadas 'ala sets a poem by the 17th-century Yemenite poet and rabbi Shalom Shabazi for two countertenors, voices and early instruments such as gamba, dulcian, bombard and positive organ. L'Équinoxe de l'âme, for soprano, triple harp and the NYYD Quartet, uses Henry Corbin's French translation of the Sufi mystic Suhrawardi (1155-1191). silences / larmes sets short poems by Mother Immaculata Astre, Abbess of the Benedictine community of Le Pesquié, for soprano, oboe and the composer's glasses and chimes. In the title piece, a traditional Ladino poem for voices and nyckelharpa (played by Marco Ambrosini), Tulve hears "the raindrops bounce in the vocal lines". The closing orchestral work takes its ideas from Michel de Certeau's Extase blanche.

Robert Hugill, on Planet Hugill in 2014, praised the album's "fascinating timbres and fluid writing" and found that Tulve "has a very distinctive musical voice". In MusicWeb International, Hubert Culot called the title piece "a deeply moving love-song" and L'Équinoxe de l'âme a work that repays repeated hearings. Tyran Grillo, on ECM Reviews in 2015, heard Tulve's voice as more assured than on her first album.

CD edition of ECM New Series 2243, released on 7 February 2014.