Canti Drammatici
"...Ensemble Raro bring a feisty application, impeccable polish and lively imagination to Brahms’s stormy C minor Piano Quartet..."
The Gramophone, January 2009
"...die kongeniale Neueinspielung des jungen Ensemble Raro wirkt ebenso ausdrucksmächtig wie subtil..."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 31. Januar 2009
"Empfehlenswert!" *****
PIZZICATO, September 2008
"...one of the best Third Piano Quartets I’ve heared in a long time..."
International Record Review, November 2008
"...das Andante: eine einzige Liebeserklärung, dem göttlich musizierenden Ensemble Raro spürbar zu Herzen gehend."
Das Orchester, Dezember 2008
Consoling music of home
Yearning is a constant in life and in music. Peteris Vasks's music is always tinged with sorrow and melancholy, but hope is always there as well. "The beauty of nature seizes us like a promise of something," wrote the philosopher Ernst Bloch, and that promise might be seen as Peteris Vasks's point of departure.
An all-embracing, quiet love of nature and faith in its strength dwell in Vasks's music. In our times that love of nature and of one's country cannot be simple and straightforward - particularly not for Vasks, who was born in Latvia in 1946, when it was part of the Soviet Union. His love and life have meant pain and loss that would have been unendurable without hope and yearning. Growing up in rural Latvia in circumstances of rejection and suppression, the boy found security in religion and above all in music, later creating his own musical cosmos out of the contradiction. His musical oeuvre is a long way from the coolly gleaming sounds of Western European contemporary music; influenced by Shostakovich, he combines elements of Latvian folk music with aspects of the avant-garde. His music exudes moderate, simple emotion, a psychological comprehension of this world. The music is so honest and without frills that it engenders blind trust in the composer; in its expressiveness lies a strength and worldly wisdom that lend courage and strength. If there is a paradise, then it is to be found in his music - a broken, lost paradise, but one which is immensely consoling and transcendent yet very earthly, and which gives our yearning a home.
Indra Wussow, über Canti Drammatici
Songs and Dances of Life
“Songs & Dances of Life …an exceptional musical project…”
Radio France International, November 2007, Dan Pârvu
“Songs and Dances of Life is an outstanding, extraordinary musical event. One hardly ever finds such a meticulously worked out and perfectly executed sequence of pieces. My particular favorites are Schubert’s Hungarian Melody and Liszt’s miniatures in Ketler’s intelligent, transparent and pleasantly defined reading. The incredibly varied duets for two violas evoke the true ethnic colours of Transilvania. Both the cover and booklet are beautifully designed. This CD is an excellent example of presenting a specific cultural region.”
Muzikas Saule, February 2008, Orests Silabriedis
“The choice of pieces on this CD is so well judged, that the musical thought’s flow is never interrupted. Both viola players are wonderful musicians... Ketler’s piano playing is balanced and mature… “
Radio Klasika 3, Muzikas Saule, February 2008, Gita Lancere
The idea for Songs and Dances of Life was born out of our wish to celebrate Transylvania and the town of Sibiu, European Capital of Culture 2007. Sibiu has always been an important cultural centre, a cosmopolitan melting pot, where a multitude of nationalities - Romanian, German, Hungarian, Slovak and Ukrainian – coexisted for centuries.
It was a challenge for us to translate this environment into the language of music. The result is a wonderfully diverse collection of harvest and soldiers’ songs, carols, religious songs and ballads, to which we added some rare miniatures, such as four late pieces by Franz Liszt, a Slovak melody by Béla Bartók and the Hungarian Melody by Franz Schubert. What we found was, that, despite their completely different geographic origins, all these works are united through their collective ethnographic heritage.
The following thoughts can help to illustrate our point further: in the year1846, Franz Liszt gave a concert in Sibiu; spending his childhood in Transylvania left a strong imprint on György Ligeti’s musical style; Janácek’s Madonna of Frydeck is not only a religious image of a procession in a small town, but also a distant song that a shepherd plays on his flute - an image that would fit the Transylvanian landscape perfectly, as would a misty, magical Fairy Tale by Bohuslav Martinu. Both Schubert and Bartók were haunted by the very heart and soul of Hungarian countryside – the melody. There is a wonderful short anecdote in relation to this. In 1904, Bartok planned to perform his own Piano Quintet in concert. At the last moment, Schubert's ''Trout'' Quintet was substituted. ''It was a work full of interest, as evocative and imaginative as his other compositions,'' wrote a reviewer, who astonishingly believed the work to be Bartok's. ''Here we had evidence of the warmth of his Hungarian heart as well as the wide knowledge he brought to the writing of the music''.
Songs and Dances of Life could perhaps serve as one more proof that Transylvania, and especially the town of Sibiu, is a musical link and a cultural crossroads between Romania and Europe.