Cyrillus Kreek,

Estonian, 1889-1962. Studied at the St Petersburg Conservatory in the years immediately prior to the Russian revolution, then worked as music teacher first in his native Haapsalu (in western Estonia) and later at the Tallinn Conservatory. Kreek started collecting religious folksongs in 1911 in the Haapsalu region-he was the first Estonian collector to use the phonograph for this purpose-and the harmonisations he made became a lifelong preoccupation. The beautiful psalm settings heard here have an unmistakable folk tinge, and yet they are much more than simple folksong arrangements, with their carefully graded choral colouring and passing use of imitation. Kreek's magnum opus was his Requiem, using an Estonian translation of the text of Mozart's Requiem, but his essence is perfectly expressed in these choral miniatures. The first three psalms on this recording were composed in August 1923, while the setting of Psalm 121 was made in October of the same year.