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"As usual, ECM's recording of these performances, which are surely the most committed one could imagine, is outstanding." - International Record Review "Dense, complex, mysterious, passionate, spellbinding, sometimes strange and always original ... stunning performances enhanced by superb sound quality." - BBC Music Magazine "Of all symphonists active in this century, few have impressed me as strongly as the Estonian Erkki-Sven Tüür ... this is another granite-hewn score, which seizes you by the magnificence of its sound masses, then holds you by the logic of their mutations ... what an extraordinary feat of musical imagination is the work’s 20-minute concluding movement ... the combination of logic and boldness is engrossing from first to last." - Gramophone "I was especially taken by the very atmospheric closing movement ... there are touches of jazz in the orchestration and the work concludes in what the composer describes as 'incandescence.' I found the work abstract but rather attention getting! ... the music is interesting and not at all the ethereal and reverential-sounding blend of voices and orchestra that this subject might suggest. It is bold, declamatory and occasionally strident." - Audiophile Audition Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Seventh Symphony, dedicated to the Dalai Lama, is a choral symphony like no other. It is a powerful vector-based work in Tüür’s new compositional mode, in which the orchestra only intermittently frames and supports the voices. The texts that the NDR Choir sing include words of the Buddha from the Dhammapada but also utterances of more contemporary visionaries, from Gandhi to Mother Theresa. The Piano Concerto, like the symphony, was composed for the Hessischer Rundfunk and given its premiere in Frankfurt, where this album was recorded. Finnish pianist Laura Mikkola delivers an exceptional performance, responding to the surging waves of the orchestra and the inspired direction of Paavo Järvi.