Cyrillus Kreek, Marco Ambrosini, Vox Clamantis, Jaan-Eik Tulve

The Suspended Harp of Babel is devoted to the choral music of Cyrillus Kreek (1889-1962). The Estonian composer's psalm settings and folk hymn arrangements are widely sung at home but little known abroad. The Tallinn choir Vox Clamantis and its director Jaan-Eik Tulve present them alongside instrumental fantasias and interludes written for this recording by Marco Ambrosini. The result is a programme in which Lutheran chorales, Orthodox vespers, runic song and a fourteenth-century chanson meet.

Tulve founded Vox Clamantis in 1996, and the group's earlier ECM albums covered Gregorian chant and music by Arvo Pärt, Erkki-Sven Tüür and Helena Tulve. Marco and Angela Ambrosini play nyckelharpa, the Swedish keyed fiddle, and Anna-Liisa Eller plays the kannel, the Estonian zither. The album was recorded in April 2018 in the Transfiguration Church in Tallinn, produced by Manfred Eicher with Margo Kõlar as engineer and Helena Tulve supervising the recording. Paul Griffiths wrote the liner notes.

The disc opens a cappella with Psalm 121, Päeval ei pea päikene (The sun shall not smite thee), sung by the women's voices. Kreek's psalms often rest on held notes in the lowest basses, as in Kiida, mu hing, Issandat (Psalm 104) and Issand, ma hüüan Su poole (Psalm 141). In the folk hymns it is hard to tell where the traditional tune ends and his harmony begins. Jakobi unenägu (Jacob's dream), based on an Estonian runic song, passes between two solo voices before leading into a psalm from Kreek's Orthodox vespers. In the chorale Ma tulen taevast ülevelt the nyckelharpa threads through the verses. The title comes from Psalm 137, Paabeli jõgede kaldail (By the rivers of Babylon). The long finale joins the hymn Oh Jeesus, sinu valu to Guillaume de Machaut's Dame, vostre doulz viaire.

Fiona Maddocks in The Observer called it "music of another place and time, beautifully done". In Gramophone, Ivan Moody singled out the settings of Psalms 104 and 137, where the choir's tuning means "every harmonic detail is as clear as a bell". The album was a Choral & Song Choice in BBC Music Magazine.

This is the CD edition, ECM New Series 2620, released on 8 May 2020, packaged in a jewel case with an O-card.