Latvian Winterfest

ALDONIS KALNINS (b.1928): Winter Solstice Mystery, VALTS PUCE (b.1962): Christmas Cantata, ERIKS ESENVALDS (b.1977): Christmas Eve.

Description: Responses to Christmas from three generations of Latvian composers. The longest is the 17-number Mystery by Kalnins which lasts 46 minutes and uses, predominantly, Latvian folk songs for its texts (13 to be exact). Puce's cantata employs three Latvian folk songs while the youngest composer here, Esenvalds, opts for texts by the 17-century Irish poet Nahum Tate (in Latvian translation) and four Latvian poets. All the music is simple, most of it folk-inspired and brightly orchestrated for a chamber-sized ensemble (prominent harp and bell parts, as you might expect when dealing with representations of winter landscapes), and there are several solos for soprano and mezzo-soprano in each of the works. Latvian-English texts. Soloists, RLB Chamber Choir "Austrums", Youth Choir "Balsis", New York Latvian Choir, Latvian National Opera Chamber Orchestra; Andrejs Jansons.