Minka

The Eva Quartet are undoubtedly the finest current exponents of small group vocal music by Bulgarian composers and arrangers, rooted in village songs and styles but using a harmonic language and formal constraints that have developed into a music far distant from the original. Here, under the batons of conductors Milen Ivanov and Vanya Moneva, they revisit that almost inexhaustible well, drawing on work from some of the finest composers in the field over the past half century who have perfected the style with great purity and highly concentrated musical content, in which a great deal of music happens in a short time – few of the songs here last for more than three minutes.

The four singers have been together for many years now, and having been trained in the extremely demanding discipline of Bulgarian choral music, their blend of voices, rhythmic precision and emotional understanding are stunning, and their choice of songs is both varied in material and unified in sound, ranging from something close to rural antiphony (‘Nedelino’), sophisticated compositions drawing on a wide range of 20th-century techniques (‘Balno Li Ti e Sinjo Ljo’), and antique religious chant (‘Gospodi, Pomiluy’).