Erkki-Sven Tüür, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Laura Mikkola, Paavo Järvi

Two large orchestral works by the Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür, both commissioned by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and premiered in Frankfurt, here conducted by Paavo Järvi. The Seventh Symphony, Pietas (2009), is dedicated to Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama, and sets words by the Buddha and later figures for choir and orchestra. The Piano Concerto (2006) completes the programme. Both are written in what Tüür calls his vectorial method, where a work grows from a source code, "a gene which, as it mutates and grows, connects the dots".

The concerto's soloist is the Finnish pianist Laura Mikkola. The NDR Choir, prepared by Werner Hans Hagen, sings in the symphony. Both works were recorded in Frankfurt in an ECM co-production with Hessischer Rundfunk, the concerto in June 2009 at the Alte Oper and the symphony in June 2010 at the hr-Sendesaal. Eckhard Glauche and Hans Bernhard Bätzing were the recording producers, Thomas Eschler the engineer, and Paul Griffiths wrote the liner notes. The symphony was a joint commission with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

The concerto plays without a break in three linked sections, fast, slow and fast. It opens with a low note struck on the piano and answered by a high bell. Later the music turns towards a jazz-tinged cadenza, and an energetic finale gives way to a slow, spacious close. Griffiths describes soloist and orchestra as "continuous and continually in the process of meeting". The symphony runs about forty minutes in four movements, the last lasting almost twenty. Its texts include the Dhammapada in Thomas Byrom's translation alongside words by Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Saint Augustine, Jimi Hendrix and Deepak Chopra. The choir is used sparingly, set in simple syllabic lines, while the orchestra, in Griffiths' words, "has its own purposes".

Hubert Culot, reviewing the disc for MusicWeb International in 2014, noted that the choir sings in only about an eighth of the symphony. He praised Mikkola for meeting every challenge, technical and musical, and Järvi for leading with a sure hand. David Fanning wrote in Gramophone of "another granite-hewn score, which seizes you by the magnificence of its sound-masses".

CD edition of ECM New Series 2341, first released on 21 February 2014.