Arvo Pärt reviews

Magnificat, Vol. 2

Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge/Andrew Nethsingha; Glen Dempsey (organ) (Signum Classics)
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... and ...

Ars Nova Copenhagen/Paul Hillier (Naxos)
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Arvo Pärt: Stabat Mater, etc

Gloriae Dei Cantores/Richard Pugsley (Gloriae Dei Cantores)
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Stabat

Choir of Clare College, Cambridge; The Dmitri Ensemble/Graham Ross (Harmonia Mundi)
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White Light: The Space Between

O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra/Hugo Ticciati (Signum)
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Pärt: Symphonies Nos 1-4

NFM Wrocław Philharmonic/Tõnu Kaljuste
 (ECM)
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Solo – Telemann: Fantasias for Solo Flute, Nos 1-12; plus solo flute works by Takemitsu, Karg-Elert, Widmann et al

Emmanuel Pahud (Warner)
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Works by Pärt

Viktoria Mullova, Florian Donderer, Liam Dunachie; Estonian National Symphony Orchestra/Paavo Järvi (Onyx)
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A Simple Song: works by Bernstein, Copland, Mahler et al

Anne Sofie von Otter; Bengt Forsberg, Sharon Bezaly, et al (BIS)
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JS Bach: Two-part Inventions; Three-part Inventions; Preambulum; Pärt: Für Anna Maria; Für Alina; Variations for the Recovery of Arinushka

Cordelia Williams (SOMM)
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Schnittke: Psalms of Repentance; Pärt: Magnificat, Nunc dimittis

Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir/Kaspars Putnins (BIS)
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Nils Mönkemeyer explores works for viola by Bruch, Pärt and Walton

Walton’s vibrant Viola Concerto is best heard in his final, pared-down 1961 scoring. That’s the choice of viola player Nils Mönkemeyer and conductor Markus Poschner, whose wonderfully clear account is gilded by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra’s spangled brass and refined winds. The German virtuoso lavishes affection on the opening Andante commodo, bringing out all its sensuous melancholy in one, long-breathed utterance. 

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Fenella Humphreys soars in The Four Seasons Recomposed

‘Humphreys mines the repetitive melodies for subtelties of colour, rather than drama’
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Company: an 'outstanding CD' from the Borusan Quartet

This outstanding CD from the Istanbul-based Borusan Quartet explores a diverse collection of modern string quartets with tremendous spirit and poise. Arvo Pärt’s restless Summa (1977), an early example of the composer’s ‘tintinnabuli’ style, opens the disc. It is paired with Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 2 (1983), originally composed to accompany a staged adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s novel Company and here performed with apt intensity and precision.

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Pärt's Triodion sung by the Choir of Lancing College

Pärt’s Triodion, as sung by the Lancing College choir which commissioned it: two decades after the first performance, this premiere recording still has a special atmosphere of dedication about it.

Terry Blain

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Cappella Amsterdam performs Kanon Pokajanen by Arvo Part

This excellent recording of Arvo Pärt’s Kanon Pokajanen shows exactly why his often slow-moving, stylistically austere music has developed such a strong, devoted audience. Its effect is cumulatively that of a ritual, and following the booklet translation of the Slavonic text is crucial: it helps underline the subtleties of Pärt’s response to Andrew of Crete’s supplicatory odes on personal sinfulness and the need for repentance, which are less obvious if you just listen.

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Vox Clamantis perform The Deer's Cry by Arvo Pärt

On the printed page, Arvo Pärt’s The Deer’s Cry does not look difficult: not too many notes, no tricky harmonic side-steps to negotiate. And yet the level of artistry necessary to achieve the kind of living, breathing performance given here by the Estonian choir Vox Clamantis is a rarity. ‘Christ with me’, the ground-chant repeated by the lower voices, thrums like a heartbeat, the rests are filled with rapt expectancy, and the eventual crescendo has a ripe, inevitable quality to it.

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Vox Clamantis perform Pärt's 'The Deer's Cry'

'The 15 singers sound in complete, comfortable possession of the music' - read more...

 

Pärt The Deer's Cry; Von Angesicht zu Angesicht; Alleluia-Tropus; Veni creator; Drei Hirtenkinder aus Fátima; And One of the Pharisees; Da pacem Domine; Most Holy Mother of God; Virgencita; Sei gelobt, du Baum; Habitare fratres in unum; Summa; Prayer after the Canon

Vox Clamantis/Jaan-Eik Tulve

ECM 481 2449

 

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The Kristjan Järvi Sound Project celebrates Pärt

'Altogether a fine introduction both to Pärt’s familiar and lesser-known works'
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Robert Wilson Directs Arvo Pärt: Adam's Passion

Includes The Lost Paradise, a documentary by Günter Atteln.
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New Seasons: Glass, Pärt, Kancheli, Umebayashi

Performed by Gidon Kremer, Giedré Dirvanauskaite, Andrei Pushkarev, the Girls’ choir of the Vilnius Choir-singing School ‘Liepaites’ and the Kremerata Baltica
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Pärt

The album Te Deum offers powerful performances of four mid-period works by Pärt for choir and orchestra. Composed in 1985, the disc’s title work is a bold 30-minute piece for three choirs, prepared piano, string orchestra and an aeolian harp or ‘wind’ harp (heard here on tape recorder), blending echoes of early European polyphony with homophonic passages based on Gregorian Chant.

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Pärt

Commentators can be quick to dismiss Pärt’s music as too simple or sentimental. Yet such claims belie the complex musical and political process that saw Pärt arrive at his ‘tintinnabulatory’ approach amid the iron strictures of communist Estonia. This fine collection of choral works gathers together a rich array of Pärt’s works for voice, featuring a number of surprisingly strident, urgent works amid Pärt’s otherwise controlled musical expression.

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Pärt

There is no shortage of recitals of Arvo Pärt’s shorter choral works in catalogue, but anything by Polyphony is always welcome. Most of the repertoire on this disc is familiar, particularly Summa and The Woman with the Alabaster Box, but there are two premiere recordings, Virgencita and Alleluia-Tropus.

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