Arvo Part Tabula Rasa

For newcomers to the work of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, this generous two-disc collection of performances from EMI's archive would be a good place to start exploring. The authoritative Pärt performances would probably be the premiere releases on ECM, produced by Manfred Eicher, but these performances are all of a very high quality and there is a handful of works that ECM has never recorded. Pärt's most famous works are here; there are three versions each of the ever-popular Fratres (for violin and piano, string orchestra and harp, and string quartet) and Summa (for mixed voices, string orchestra, and string quartet), as well as the version of Spiegel in Spiegel for violin and piano, Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten for string orchestra and bell, and the concerto for two violins and prepared piano, Tabula rasa.

Violinists Simone Lamsma and Candida Thompson explore connections between J.S. Bach and Arvo Part on their new release Part uber Bach with Amsterdam Sinfonietta. Arvo Part's groundbreaking Tabula Rasa is presented alongside Bach's Concerto for Oboe and Violin in the version for 2 violins, and Part's own Collage uber B-A-C-H, written in 1964 wherein the Estonian master intertwines his own modernist music with phrases from J.S. Bach's music.

Arvo Part - Choral & Instrumental Works (2004) {EMI Virgin 2CD Set}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 442 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 281 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 35 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2004 EMI Records / Virgin Classics | 7243 5 62434 2 2
Classical / Choral / Instrumental

Heard a track on Radio 3, so bought this as a 'taster' of Pärt's music. A superb introduction, and play it frequently! Born at Paide in Estonia in 1935, a pupil of Heino Eller at Tallinn Conservatory, sometime sound engineer at Estonian Radio, and first prize-winner at the All-Union Young Composers' Competition in Moscow in 1962, Arvo Part, who emigrated to the west with his family in 1980, is one of the leading figures in contemporary music. He had been working with twelve-tone composition and serialism, as well as collage and aleatory techniques, but after a long period of virtual silence when he made a deep and searching study of plainsong, French and Franco-Flemish music of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, and the traditions of orthodox sacred music, he engaged in a major reassessment of his own style, emerging in 1976 to effect a renewal of his language.

The works on Viktoria Mullova’s new album devoted to Arvo Pärt’s music for violin stem from the composers study of medieval church music, and are products of what Arvo Pärt himself describes as a ‘tintinnabuli’ style, developed by the composer in the 1970s through studying medieval church music ‘I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me. I work with very few elements – with one voice, two voices. I build with primitive materials – with the triad, with one specific tonality. The three notes of a triad are like bells and that is why I call it tintinnabulation.’

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 collection of recordings illuminates two different sides of violinist Tasmin Little’s accomplished playing. While the Brahms and Sibelius Concertos are a testament to her technical skill and breadth of expression, the Pärt works display a more pared-back approach, making full use of Little’s pure and resonant tone.

Released to celebrate Arvo Pärt's 75th birthday in September 2010, this 2-CD commemorative set contains many of his best-known works including many composed in Pärt's new style, the most notable of which is Spiegel im Spiegel and Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten. Along with Gorecki, Arvo Pärt is the best-selling living composer of the last 20 years.

Tractus emphasizes Arvo Pärt compositions that blend the timbres of choir and string orchestra. New versions predominate, with focused performances from the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Tõnu Kaljuste’s direction that invite alert and concentrated listening. From the opening composition Littlemore Tractus, which takes as its starting point consoling reflections from a sermon by John Henry Newman, the idea of change, transfiguration and renewal resonates, setting a tone for a recording whose character is one of summing up, looking inward, and reconciling with the past.