Veljo Tormis, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste

Reminiscentiae is a tribute to Veljo Tormis (1930-2017), the Estonian composer whose music grew out of ancient folk song, above all the old regilaul. "I do not use folk song. It is folk song that uses me," he once said. The album gathers choral and orchestral works written between 1962 and 1982, several in new versions. They are performed by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra under Tõnu Kaljuste, for decades one of his closest associates.

Tormis was born in Kuusalu, studied at the Tallinn and Moscow conservatories and left more than 500 works, mostly choral. At 70 he stopped composing, then spent some fifteen years editing and revising earlier scores, and part of this programme comes from that work. Kaljuste had already recorded Forgotten Peoples (1992) and Litany to Thunder (1999) with the choir for ECM. This album was recorded in October and November 2020 at the Methodist Church in Tallinn, with Tammo Sumera as engineer and Manfred Eicher as executive producer. Mezzo-soprano Iris Oja and reciter Veiko Tubin are among the soloists.

The Tower Bell in My Village (1978), for choir, two sopranos, reciter and bell, sets Fernando Pessoa in Estonian. Kaljuste commissioned it for a tour with his choir, and the Soviet authorities disliked its attention to churches and their bells. At the centre are the four Reminiscentiae cycles, choral pieces of the 1960s arranged for string orchestra in 2009. There is one for each season, from Autumn Landscapes to Summer Motifs, and most movements last about a minute. Worry Breaks the Spirit, Hamlet's Song I and the closing Herding Calls appear in Kaljuste's new arrangements for choir and orchestra.

In Gramophone in 2023 Ivan Moody wrote that there is not a single piece in the cycle "that seems compromised by the absence of text". James Manheim at AllMusic heard the orchestral settings as "a kind of 'Estonian Four Seasons'" and called the performances ideal. Fono Forum gave the album five stars, as did Choir & Organ, where Philip Reed praised the choir's commitment, attack and blend.

This is the CD edition, ECM New Series 2793, released on 8 September 2023, with notes by Miina Pärn and Kaljuste and the sung texts in Estonian and English.