Awakening, Erkki-Sven Tüür‘s large-scale choral piece, was first performed earlier this year as one of the commissions for Talinn’s year as a European capital of culture. The texts are taken from a range of Estonian poets, interspersed with extracts in Latin from the Easter liturgy, to evoke the sense of springtime rebirth and renewal. Much of the choral writing is restrained and unaccompanied, with the chamber orchestra supplying punctuation and sometimes discreet support. Beautifully delivered by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Daniel Reuss, it’s a poised, rather austerely beautiful piece, in which Tüür’s characteristically dense proliferations emerge only in the instrumental writing. The a cappella settings of Ernst Enno in 2000’s The Wanderer’s Evening Song inhabit an equally delicate soundworld to evoke a similar sense of wonder at the natural world’s beauties, while the string-orchestra Insula Deserta, from 1989, in which Arvo Pärt seems to be joined in unholy alliance with Iannis Xenakis, was the piece that really put Tüür on the international map.