For those seeking comfort and an escape from the manifold stresses and uncertainties currently facing mankind, there will be much in this new collection of choral music by Ēriks Ešenvalds that will warm the soul and give solace while also providing a salutary reminder of the essential fragility of our existence.

The disc’s title refers to ‘the transformations that occur within us when we encounter the power of nature, legends, or the divine’. The choice of texts ranges from the reflective (My Thoughts), the soothing and uplifting (In paradisum) to violent despair (The Legend of the Walled-In Woman). As with much of Ešenvalds’s music, tempos are slow, with additional percussion (tuned and untuned) being an integral feature. Listeners should beware the extreme low frequencies of the bass drum in Vineta, the most dissonant and far reaching track emotionally and harmonically. Ešenvalds’s stringent tonal idiom is loaded with long, aching suspensions and seamless vocalising.

The seven pieces on this disc date from 2005 19. Just one, Translation, is a first recording. It is interesting that there is no overlap at all with Signum’s recent Ešenvalds recording, ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ (4/20). Ethan Sperry’s immaculate Portland State Chamber Choir clearly relish the luscious choral textures, which often expand into 16 parts. The engineering captures with great clarity both this sense of spaciousness (helped by the resonant acoustic of the church recording venue) and the extreme dynamic range. All the solo vocal contributions are magnificent. A special mention must also go to Marilyn de Oliveira for her rhapsodic cello solo in the concluding In paradisum, the longest, most soothing and, ultimately, most uplifting and resolving track.

A stunning, timely triumph, therefore, full of ravishing, transformative and deeply touching music.