An important recording‚ splendidly performed‚ so it’s a pity to begin with a complaint. Château de l’âme is a song­cycle‚ in Kaija Saariaho’s most lyrical manner‚ setting Indian and Egyptian love­spells in French translation. Sony’s booklet‚ which includes several photographs of Saariaho and Salonen‚ dressed in white and sitting enigmatically in a cobbled courtyard‚ cannot find room for the texts of these songs. But Saariaho has set them so sensitively! And in the attached interview (which by the way says rather little about Amers‚ the work here that most needs introducing) she speaks so warmly about them and about the way vocal music has an additional emotional charge ‘because the texts and their meaning reach us with the music’. Not here they don’t. Even so I do urge you to hear the piece; that these are spells‚ to awaken love‚ to protect and to heal‚ is sufficiently evident‚ even without the words. They are exquisitely sung‚ finely played and quite haunting. To anyone new to Saariaho’s music I would recommend listening to them first‚ though I can understand why Graal Théâtre is placed at the head of the programme. It is a two­movement‚ 28­minute violin concerto demanding rhetorical gestures and extraordinary feats of virtuosity from the soloist‚ responding to them with richly inventive orchestral landscapes. Quite apart from Saariaho’s formidable ear it is obvious that she played the violin once‚ and is still in love with its flamboyant nature. Amers (Sea­marks) is a rather shorter two­movement cello concerto‚ a bit harder to grasp at first hearing because it is more concerned with colour and texture (including electronics) than with sustained line‚ but Graal Théâtre will lead you into its world‚ and it is no less formidably played. All three pieces are vividly recorded.