CD reviews: Matt Haimovitz, "Toivo Tulev: Songs"

Matt Haimovitz:

• "Odd Couple: Cello Sonatas by Samuel Barber, Elliott Carter, and Works by David Sanford and Augusta Read Thomas"; with Geoffrey Burleson, piano (Oxingale)

• Bach's "Goldberg Variations" for string trio; with Jonathan Crow, violin, and Douglas McNabney, viola (Oxingale)

Although oddly titled in reference to the famous Neil Simon play, the "Odd Couple" disc is what many Matt Haimovitz fans are likely to have been waiting for. His recordings with the usual cello-piano duo are few because he feels the two instruments are impossibly mismatched. But he bit the bullet (sort of) for the sake of the exceptional repertoire on this disc. And indeed, it's great to have his musical intelligence applied to music that so greatly rewards it.

However, significant parts of the repertoire don't require the two instruments to blend. In the Carter work, an early piece that feels like a model of classical clarity in Haimovitz's hands, the instruments are inclined to go their separate ways within the same sphere.

Cleverly, Thomas' "Cantos for Slava" (a tribute to Mstislav Rostropovich) blends the two, with cello pizzicato and the piano playing spare, well-placed notes in a pointillistic duet. If nothing else, Haimovitz admirers should buy this to encourage more such "odd couple" discs.

Although never one to make redundant recordings, Haimovitz comes close in his outing with Bach's "Goldberg Variations" in the Dmitri Sitkovetsky transcription. The music can go flat without the percussive element of keyboard instruments, which doesn't happen here, thanks to the loving interplay among the three instruments. But those who are happy with Sitkovetsky's fine recordings need look no further.

"Toivo Tulev: Songs"; Paul Hillier conducting the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra; Robin Blaze, countertenor (Harmonia Mundi)

The name, the performers, the nationality (Estonian) tell you this composer is the newest personality in that school of liturgically based, expressively spare Eastern European composers known as the holy minimalists. However, composer Toivo Tulev perhaps has more in common with relatively maximal personalities such as Erkki-Sven Tüür and Tönu Kaljuste than the more famous (and more austere) Arvo Pärt. In fact, Tulev casts his net wider than most of them.

"Songs," a collection for chorus, vocal soloists and a wide-ranging instrument ensemble, has texts in three languages and owes much of its considerable appeal to its mercurial, free-form temperament. What comes next in any given piece is beyond unpredictable but never incoherent, and frequently follows a stunning logic of its own. The disc is filled out by a series of short pieces, including a quiet, mostly instrumental work, "Leave, Alas, This Tormenting," for percussion and distant prerecorded choir, plus "Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!" written for Queen Elizabeth's visit to Estonia in 2006. Unlike some composers who become conventional for state occasions, Tulev was inspired to new heights of compositional brinkmanship. I wonder what the queen thought.