Saariaho, Kaija - Northscapes - Jokubaviciute, Ieva

The Northscapes recording project weaves together works from the first decades of the 21st century by composers from the Nordic and Baltic countries into a tapestry of soundscapes that oscillates between landscape and imagination, the external and the internal, nature and the psyche. These piano solo works are united by a special attunement to nature, which echoes the region's ever-present reservoir of pagan myths, legends, and folk music. Their sensitivity to the sound environment allows the composers to explore the borderline between landscape, soundscape, and mindscape. Beyond mere musical "representations" of the magnificent natural landscapes of the north, each work seeks in its own way to transform the natural world into a soundscape, a mental landscape, an imaginary geography. Beyond mere pastoral nostalgia, these sonic meditations on nature extend beyond the physical into the spiritual, exploring the boundary between the objective and the subjective. Whether dealing with the vastness of cosmic space or the intimate, inner essence of an expressive sound, these works harness the power of music to explore the emotional contours of the tension between the world and the mind. Haunted by memories, fantasy, dreams, and decay, and saturated with emotion, the music transforms consciousness through a transformative synthesis of landscape, soundscape, and mindscape—a transition from imaginary soundscapes to soundscapes of the imagination. In the hands of Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute, Northscapes is an aurora of sound, an aurora for the ear and the mind. (Christopher Zimmerman)