Arvo Pärt, Vox Clamantis

The Deer's Cry is an album of choral music by Arvo Pärt sung by Vox Clamantis, the Estonian vocal ensemble led by Jaan-Eik Tulve. It spans almost four decades of his writing, from Summa (1977) to Drei Hirtenkinder aus Fátima (2014). Nearly half the programme is rarely recorded, and two pieces, Habitare fratres in unum and the Fátima setting, appear here on disc for the first time.

Vox Clamantis began with Gregorian chant and early polyphony, and its first New Series album, Filia Sion (2012), stayed with medieval music. The group's link with Pärt goes back to 1999, when it sang chant between the sections of his organ piece Annum per Annum. Most of this album was recorded at the Transfiguration Church in Tallinn in September 2013 and 2014, with Pärt present at the sessions. Veni Creator, with Susanne Doll on organ, dates from June 2007 at the Dome Church of St. Nicholas in Haapsalu. Manfred Eicher was executive producer.

The title piece (2007) sets a text attributed to Saint Patrick for mixed choir a cappella, in an incantatory, chant-like manner. Alleluia-Tropus was written for Vox Clamantis and is heard here without the instruments of their earlier recording on Adam's Lament. That Grammy-winning album paired them with the Latvian Radio Choir under Tõnu Kaljuste. Three works add small instrumental groups. Von Angesicht zu Angesicht has a soprano with clarinet, viola and double bass. Sei gelobt, du Baum, on a text by Viivi Luik, has male voices with violin, lute and double bass. The disc closes with Gebet nach dem Kanon, the final prayer from Kanon Pokajanen (1997).

In Pitchfork, Seth Colter Walls noted that some of these pieces had been recorded before, but that Vox Clamantis "always tease out something new". For Terry Blain in BBC Music Magazine, the album "may now be the finest single-disc introduction to Pärt's music". Tulve has described how Pärt guided the singers with images rather than instructions, and how his humour kept the sessions relaxed.

This is the CD edition, ECM New Series 2466, released on 9 September 2016.