PĒTERIS VASKS

Recording on our partner label CAvi Music, Violinist Antje Weithaas and the Camerata Bern release their new album featuring a studio recording of Latvian composer, composition teacher, and double bassist Pēteris Vasks’s second violin concerto Vakara gaismā (“In Evening Light”). Vasks wrote this concerto in 2020 as a commissioned work for violin and string orchestra, the same line-up as his first violin concerto written almost 25 years earlier.  

The underlying sense of tranquility in this concerto has its origins in a reflection on nature. Particularly birdsong inspired Vasks to write this concerto, combined with an aspect of religious faith, as he grew up a pastor’s son. The work further reflects the composer’s real-life experiences of chaos, since his upbringing in a small Latvian town was characterized by fear, censorship, and a sense of hopelessness.