Daugavas is not only the Latvian name of the river—also known as Western Dvina and Düna—which empties into the Baltic Sea in Riga. This is also the name of a great pom written in 1916 by the poet Rainis, great advocate for a free Latvia, which drew the ire of the Russian Empire and, in passing, earned him some time in jail and a long exile in Switzerland. During the tensions that led to the independence of the Baltic States from the Soviet dictatorship, the composer Mārtiņš Brauns takes part of the text to compose his ample cycle Daugavas, whose last volume, very solemn, ended up becoming some kind of unofficial national anthem celebrating political and cultural freedom, far from Moscow’s yoke. Brauns’ writing, rather classical in essence with some folkloric flavors, doesn’t hesitate to sometimes venture into almost rock sonorities—you must know that the composer, even if he had a classical education, has also been the pianist and songwriter of a Latvian rock band! His incursions into movie soundtracks also give him a substantial ability to produce “visual” and tangible music, close to the listener, but without ever veering toward the easy route. Some rare but singular electric guitar sounds and the raucous voice of Brauns himself—external to the choral writing which remains resolutely polyphonic and often modal—act as a bridge between the eras and the concepts. © SM/Qobuz