Mirror is the first ECM New Series album from Estonian composer Tonu Korvitz (born 1969), who emphasizes his links to his homelands music at several levels. The album begins with a fantasy on a song by Veljo Tormis. Like the older composer, Korvitz has been influenced by folk song and archaic musical tradition, which find their echo in the refined and texturally-rich spectrum of his own, labyrinthine pieces. His music is well served here by the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Tonu Kaljustes assured direction and by soloist Anja Lechner. Lechners cello is foregrounded in Peegeldused Tasaset Maast (2013), Laul (2012, rev. 2013) and the albums largest piece Seitsme Linnu Seitse Und (2009, rev. 2012), a collaboration with the poet Maarja Kangro, which is both choral suite and cello concerto. In these seven dreams of seven birds the choir sings in Estonian and English and the cello conjures both birdsong and swooping flight.

Writing in a style that was essentially Romantic, if modified by his study of Classical composers, the Swedish composer Stenhammar enjoyed a successful career also as a pianist and then, primarily, as a conductor. As a leading composer of his generation in Sweden, Stenhammar contributed to a variety of genres. Two symphonies and two piano concertos, in addition to a number of less substantial works, are still in today’s repertoire. The Interlude from his important cantata Sången is a frequent concert item.

Allar Kaasik has enjoyed a long and fruitful career, in his native Estonia as well as abroad. Reflecting on it in the liner notes to this very personal disc, he singles out one particular aspect: the ambition to embrace the very latest compositions by Estonian composers. Performing in churches as he often does, Kaasik finds music resounding in a church a part of the Holy Service. This is reflected in many of the works which have been written for him, with composers such as Galina Grigorjeva and Kuldar Sink enriching the tradition of Estonian church music. Among Allar Kaasik’s many partners in performing these works, several appear on the present disc, including two eminent choirs – the State Choir Latvija and Estonian National Male Choir – as well as the Latvian organist Kristīne Adamaite. A focal point of the programme is the cello concerto Pro et contra by the most celebrated of all Estonian composers, Arvo Pärt. Kaasik is supported by the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peeter Lilje and the recording has a particular significance – originally released by Melodiya in 1989, it was the first recording of Pärt’s music published on disc in the Soviet Union following the lifting of the unofficial ban on his music. The remaining works on Timeless Light were all recorded between 2014 and 2016.