Arvo Part Portrait

Arvo Pärt: A Portrait, a collection of performances by Canadian violinist Angèle Dubeau and her string ensemble La Pietà, is easily among the finest recordings devoted to Pärt's instrumental music. It includes his best-known works for strings, with the exception of Fratres, in performances of exceptional purity that get at the heart of his uniquely simple, chaste, and directly communicative music.

This album contains all the music Arvo Pärt created for the Cello Octet: Solfeggio, Silouan's song, Da Pacem Domine, Summa, Psalom, Missa Brevis, O-Antiphonen and Pari Intervallo.

Philips's collection of major works that have propelled Gavin Bryars to New Music stardom is an effective overview of his music. The longest work is his Cello Concerto, handsomely played by Julian Lloyd Webber with a big, colorful tone and sustained intensity throughout its contemplative half-hour. A comparable mood pervades the bright tintinnabulating textures of the whimsically titled One Last Bar, Then Joe Can Sing. Similar as well, in their attractive serenity and suppressed sadness, are many of the other works here, prime among them the viola concerto in all but name, The North Shore, a tone painting of the rugged cliffs of northeast England. Adnan Songbook, settings of six poems by Lebanese poet Etel Adnan, are beautifully sung by soprano Valerie Anderson and delicately scored for a small ensemble. Bryars's biggest hits, The Sinking of the Titanic and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, have inspired him to numerous reworkings and capsuled fragments. They're represented by Titanic Lament, depicting a hymn tune dissolving into gray, watery textures, and two very different four-minute versions of Jesus' Blood, both with Tom Waits.

Chamber music has never been John Adams' most natural outlet for expression; he tends to work on a large scale, in both duration and the performing forces his music calls for. Violinist Angèle Dubeau, who had already released "portrait" albums featuring the string works of Philip Glass and Arvo Pärt, therefore didn't have a large range of choices of Adams works to fill out this CD, but the three pieces included are all winners. Shaker Loops (1978) for string septet was Adams' first big success and it remains one of his most frequently performed works, probably at least in part because of the relatively modest size of ensemble it requires.

Sofia Gubaidulina - Portrait - Claire-Marie Le Guay (2009) {Accord 4803153}
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© 2009 Accord / Classics Jazz France | 4803153
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Piano / Orchestral

Following the critical success of her Haydn/Mozart series Claire-Marie le Guay concentrates her new recording on the Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. This portrait features the beautiful piano works Invention (1974), Chaconne (1963), Musical Toys (1969) and Introitus (1978), a chamber concerto with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jean-Jacques Kantorow.