Whenever I have heard Vox Clamantis in concert it has been an amazing experience. Their clarity, their precision, their sheer musicianship make them easily one of the best vocal ensembles currently active anywhere in the world. Much of the music on this disc I heard in concert quite recently, in Tallinn, and it is true to say that, with ECM’s superb engineering, the frisson of live performance is captured here to perfection.

Cyrillus Kreek (1889-1962) is a composer whose name has filtered through only slowly to the wider public but his music is widely sung and loved in Estonia. His choral style is deeply informed by Estonian folk music, of which he was a collector, and by the Lutheran hymn tradition, while he also set texts from the rites of the Orthodox Church. All these are represented here, with additional material by Marco Ambrosini for the nyckelharpa and the kannel (a kind of zither), freely elaborated from Kreek’s material; this creates a welcome variety of texture and colour.

Some of the overlapping can be a little curious: I am not really convinced by the irruption of the opening of Orthodox Vespers into the instrumental accompaniment to Jacob’s Dream, for example, dramatically effective though it undeniably is. Arguably even more surprising, but, I think, more effective, is what Paul Griffiths aptly describes as the ‘conversation’ between Kreek and Machaut that closes the disc. The melody for Kreek’s partial setting of Psalm 103 (104) which follows Jacob’s Dream will, incidentally, be familiar to anyone who knows Rachmaninov’s Vigil, though it is of course set here in Estonian. Two of the most impressive works are Bless the Lord, my soul and By the rivers of Babylon, both of which are absolutely ideal vehicles for Vox Clamantis, whose precise placing of chords, assisted by impeccable tuning, means that every harmonic detail is as clear as a bell. Highly recommended.