Gidon Kremer (violin), Kremerata Baltica, Nicolas Altstaedt (cello), Riga Chamber Choir "Kamer . . ."/Maris Sirmais ECM New Series 476 4662***

The Lyre of Orpheus(2006) for violin, percussion and strings is part of the triptych Nadeyka, dedicated to Gubaidulina's daughter Nadeshda, who died in 2004. The Canticle of the Sun(1997) is a setting of a text by St Francis of Assisi, chosen "to reveal the sunny personality of the brilliant musician Mstislav Rostropovich", and written for his 70th birthday. Its movements are called Glorifications, of the Creator, of Life and Death, and the piece is theatrical in ways that CD cannot fully reveal – the cello is retuned at one point before being set aside for bass drum and a flexatone played with a double bass bow. Both works fully embody the unending fascination of Gubaidulina's acute ear with the precise character of sound and the means of its production. url.ie/7ebo