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.
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.
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.
The popular choral group the Sixteen has never sounded better than on this release, and fans of the ensemble can buy with confidence in acquiring a set of classic English Renaissance pieces with a few modern works for spice. For the unconverted it's a bit less convincing, but it has a strong idea. The album title comes from the conventional name of a prayer of none other than St. Patrick, set in modern English by Arvo Pärt in 2007.