Born in Russia, Victoria Borisova-Ollas has lived in Sweden since 1993. In the international music press, she has been described as ‘a composer with a sparkling individual voice’ and an ‘orchestrator of the greatest virtuosity’. This is borne out by this well-filled disc which features five works from 2003 to 2013, in performances by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (RSPO) with which Borisova-Ollas enjoys a collaboration of long standing.

The brief opening piece for chorus on this new release, "Da Pacem Domine," is based on a 9th century Gregorian work and has the usual, familiar–and very beautiful–Pärt-ian characteristics: a soft, endless stream of easy tritones and harmonies that make this plea for peace immensely moving. The major work, Lamentate, is scored for large orchestra and solo piano–a very unusual combination for Pärt. Even his fans will be surprised. In ten brief sections, it begins with a quiet drum roll, immediately followed by horn calls. There are forte explosions for full orchestra and piano, with heavy percussion. At times the only thing we hear is a hushed piano part with strings supporting very quietly. The effect is dark yet alluring. It ends peacefully. This is another stunning CD of Pärt's music for his fans–old and new.

There's a little joke behind the innocuous name of Ernest Bloch's Symphony in E-flat. It is, in truth, one of his most harmonically acerbic works, very close to the tortured contrapuntal idiom of another famous Swiss composer: Honegger. The piece only really achieves its home key in the quiet, final bars, but along the way sparks fly in all directions, and no matter how dissonant the idiom the argument is very easy to follow, and melodies and motives have distinctive, easily recognizable shapes.

Despite the rather numerous and diverse orchestral line-up, the idea of concertare has a more chamber-like character here. The soloist is usually not directly confronted with the massive sound of a full orchestral tutti, but rather is involved in dialogues and interactions with small groups of instruments. With exceptional naturalness, André Tchaikowsky managed to achieve in this concerto a balance between solo violin and a full-scale symphony orchestra, employing textures of a linear, quasi-polyphonic character – enriched, however, by intense and refined harmony and contrapuntal devices drawing on the Baroque tradition.