Pur ti miro sets the sheng, the Chinese mouth organ, beside viola and double bass in music from Claudio Monteverdi to Antonio Vivaldi. Wu Wei plays the sheng, Martin Stegner the viola and Janne Saksala the double bass, the last two members of the Berlin Philharmonic. The programme joins two Monteverdi pieces, movements from Johann Sebastian Bach's organ trio sonatas Nos. 1 and 4, Vivaldi's trio sonata La Follia and a Norwegian bridal march. The players do not aim at historical correctness; they "explore the freedom the music offers", with respect and a desire for discovery.

Wu Wei was born in Gaoyou, Jiangsu, studied at the Shanghai Conservatory and has lived in Berlin since 1995. His sheng was built with a key mechanism that gives him full access to the Western tonal system, and composers such as Unsuk Chin and Jukka Tiensuu have written for him. Stegner joined the Berlin Philharmonic in 1996 and co-founded its jazz group in 2008. Saksala, from Helsinki, has been its first principal bass since 2008. The album was recorded in October 2022 at Teldex Studio in Berlin, with Martin Sauer as Tonmeister and Manfred Eicher as executive producer.

The project began when Wu Wei brought Monteverdi's Si dolce è'l tormento to a session, and the song opens the disc. Stegner remembers the moment in his liner note: "An entirely new world of sound opened up for me." In the Adagio of Bach's first trio sonata the muted viola curls around the sheng, while the Andante of the fourth is pared down to three slow strands. Vivaldi's La Follia, the longest piece at almost ten minutes, runs through its variations with the sheng sometimes close to an accordion. Pur ti miro, the final duet of L'incoronazione di Poppea, gives the album its title, and Bruremarsj frå Beiarn closes it.

Writing for ECM Reviews, Tyran Grillo heard strings and sheng "dissolve into one another, forming a single instrument with three voices". ECM recalls that the sheng's sound has been compared to the singing phoenix of Chinese legend, "silvery and fleeting as the wind". Wu Wei had last appeared on the label in 2021 with the Trickster Orchestra, and Stegner made his ECM debut in 2014 on Cyminology's Phoenix.

This is the CD edition, ECM New Series 2843, released in December 2025.