In this SKANi Latvian Composers Series album the Grammy award-winning Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra, mezzo-soprano Ieva Parša, organist Aigars Reinis and conductor Andris Veismanis bring world premiere recordings of Latvian polystylist composer Marģeris Zariņš (1910-1993): Carmina Antica (1963), Partita in Baroque Style (1963), Four Japanese Miniatures (1963) and both of his organ concerti Concerto Innocente (1969) and Concerto Tryptichon (1971) that were recorded on the famous E.F. Walcker & Co. organ of the Riga Cathedral.

What was current in the field of Latvian literature in 1963? Ojārs Vācietis turned thirty years old and had recently published his poem "Einsteiniana"; in addition, this idealistic poet's conflicts with the cultural environment ruled by the totalitarian Soviet regime grew ever deeper. Yevgeny Yevtushenko was also thirty years old and had already published his Tenderness poetry collection and the poem "The Heirs of Stalin". Others, including Vizma Belševica and Joseph Brodsky, had come to open confrontation with the ruling regime, but the atmosphere was turbulent for many. Linards Tauns – a contemporary of Vācietis, Belševica and Imants Ziedonis who had fled Latvia during the war – had suddenly died in New York City, and his likewise very gifted confrère and friend Gunars Saliņš began compiling Tauns's second collection of poems, Marriage with the City. In 1963, the prolific author Anthony Burgess published his novel Honey for the Bears and the first part of his Enderby series; a year earlier, he had published the novel The Wanting Seed and, of course, his best-known work, A Clockwork Orange.

It is possible that the key to interpreting the compositions of Marģeris Zariņš lies precisely in literature. And not only because Zariņš himself was a writer. His music and literature is permeated by many different levels of stylisation, genuine joie de vivre and a grotesque-like sense of humour. He was cheerful, charismatic, lightly ironic, witty; but at the same time, he was also provocative. The grotesque twists and turns in his work reveal the drama of human experience and point to a reality that is harsh, unpredictable and anti- human. Zariņš's oeuvre also contains drama and tragedy. And the reasons for this are also found in the deeper connections linked with the historical era and political reality of the 1960s and 70s he portrayed.