It was either Fanfare or American Record Guide that reviewed the ECM recording of Tormis 's"Forgotten Peoples", a cycle of six choral works (unaccompanied, male, for the most part) on the theme of now- or near-extinct ethnic groups around the Baltic: the Vepses, the Izhorians, the Livonians, etc.
The review made this 2-CD set sound pretty interesting (Diablo 3 Gold), so I toddled off downtown and bought a copy at A & B Sound, then a paradise for classical lovers, now alas gone with the wind. Got in the car, shoved disk 1 into the CD player, and drove off up Johnson Street.
Just as I was approaching Vancouver Street (where the dropper is on that Google map), the music took a turn that so seized by attention that I nearly ran up onto the sidewalk about here. Yowza!
One warning: only Finnish and Estonian choirs can do Tormis right. There's a recording of Tormis by the BBC Singers led by Bo Holten to avoid: whereas the Baltic groups' performances are redolent of the out doors, as though you were standing on a rocky outcrop with clouds scudding by overhead in a stiff wind (Diablo 3 Gold), the BBC Singers sound like you have entered the confines of a high-class brothel, complete with red velvet drapes, dim pink lights, and incense scented air. Don't say I didn't warn you.
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