Page 513 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

ppp - works by Pēteris Plakidis, Kristaps Pētersons and Georgs Pelēcis Gidon Kremer, with
Kremerata Baltica and Kremerata Lettonica (SKANi)

Amid the celebrations of Gidon Kremer's 75th birthday last year, this is a good album which got
away. Yes, we did cover his remarkable Wigmore Hall concert, overshadowed by the then
imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, and also a celebratory 21-CD retrospective set from
Warner Classics. But such is Kremer's way of giving the slip to his minders and achieving long-
term creative freedom, it is perhaps not surprising that there should be more. This review, if late,
does happen (happily) to coincide with one of the works on the album already flying free and
taking on a different life: movements from Georgs Pelecis' "Fiori Musicali" have just entered the
repertory of Ballet Kiel in Northern Germany, with new choreography by Wubkje Kuindersma.
Kremer is mostly on this album as catalyst: his violin playing is to be heard on just four of its
eleven tracks. That is because there is another agenda present, that of SKANi, essentially the
recording arm of the Latvian Music Information Center, tasked with promoting work by Latvian
composers. Both Peteris Plakidis and Georgs Pelēcis were born in 1947, which makes them
direct contemporaries from the same year of birth as Kremer himself. Kristaps Pētersons