Long Road is a setting of a love poem by Paulina Barda (widow of the eminent poet Fricis Barda), who died in 1983 at the age of ninety-three; set in the original Latvian, it was Ešenvalds’s contribution to
Love madrigals, a collection of new commissions to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the remarkable youth choir Kamer…, and this English version was specially made for Stephen Layton and Polyphony, to whom it is dedicated. It has the plain sincerity of a hymn, being homophonic throughout, and its thorough-going diatonicism is straightforward yet lush. At the midway point, a gentle susurration of bell-sounds and ocarinas appears unexpectedly, there is a brief downwards shift of a third, followed by an elated return to the home key, decorated by soloistic descants, before sustained vocalise and a return of the evanescent tinkling ushers the piece to its close.
from notes by Gabriel Jackson © 2011
