Few performers have reshaped the classical repertory like violinist Gidon Kremer. He was key in bringing the music of composer Mieczys¿aw Weinberg to general attention, and he identified a highly productive fount of music where minimalism met avant-garde styles. Hardly anything Kremer has done has been anything less than well-considered and well-executed, but with Songs of Fate, he and his ensemble Kremerata Baltica outdo themselves. The album is inspired by Kremer's Jewish background, something he hasn't made a point of in the past, but that seems to snap much of his output into relief after one has heard this. The program consists of works by Baltic composers, apparently not all of them Jewish, and three of the Jewish Songs, Op. 13, of Weinberg, which have a quality of Jewish self-revelation akin to that which Kremer is accomplishing here. There are also two highly appealing early Weinberg pieces that could be added to the repertory of any orchestra. Most of the music involves Kremer's string orchestra, with novel solo instruments such as a svilpaunieki and a vibraphone. The program was recorded in two sessions, one of them live, in 2019 and 2022; only the works by Raminta ¿erk¿nyt¿ and J¿kabs Jan¿evskis were recorded after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and none were done prior to the attacks of October 7, 2023, in Israel. Yet both events seem to hang over the music, which rises from a mix of Jewish roots and uneasy dissonance to a soaring finale in Jan¿evskis' Lignum. This is a powerful album, and ECM's crack engineering staff unifies the diverse sound sources. It has the feel of a project that came together as Kremer and the other performers realized its impact, and one may be thankful that they did. ~ James Manheim