Part Ecm Arvo

This seminal disc now almost seems like the manifesto for a whole new strain of minimalism that has found an enormously receptive audience. It represented a breakthrough for Estonian composer Arvo Part, whose music–like that of his European colleagues John Tavener and Henryk Gуrecki–pursues an austerely beautiful simplicity that suggests spiritual illumination. Fratres, given here in two versions, one for piano and violin and the other for 12 cellos, repeatedly intones a sequence resembling chant to convey a sensibility that seems at once archaic and beyond time. Violinist Gidon Kremer, for whom Part wrote the exquisitely contemplative and hypnotic title work, grasps the music's koan-like idiom, allowing an inner fullness to resonate through the most fragile, ethereal wisps of tone against the mysterious clangings of prepared piano.

Marshalling orchestral and choral forces under the direction of Tonu Kaljuste, this new Arvo Part album, produced by Manfred Eicher and realized, like all Part’s ECM discs, with the composer’s participation, is a major event. Sacred music predominates, by turns monumentally powerful and tenderly fragile.

Nominated for a Grammy (2002) for best Classical Album, Orient Occident represents the newest and, more importantly, epic portrayal of historical music to date. Regardless of any award, this album will continue its reputation as the most important record of new music in 2002, for the very fact that in the world of new music, Arvo Pärt is a puritan's feast. On the threshold of being a globally resonating composer, Pärt remains full of powerful ideas in film, stage, oratorio and orchestral music. Pärt's talent surmises the infinite variety of spiritual symbolism. He is a composer deeply rooted in the ancestrally religious past of his native Estonia. Further removed from Roman Catholic preaching, the Eastern European Orthodox church took to a more enlightening approach―renunciation. Pärt has, indeed, spent much of his time clarifying his search for richness in life's meaning. His work is as timeless as the art of work is meaningless. This meaningless struggle has dispirited Pärt's yearning soul, and with his newest music we are drawn to his misty, remote retreat. In Orient Occident, not only does Pärt recreate a shameless force of magnitude as a great work (three great works to be exact: "Wallfahrtslied", "Orient & Occident", and "Como Cierva Sedienta"), he has reorganized his approach making this change a revelatory turn from past familiar traits. Having rediscovered himself half dozen times before this year, Pärt introduces a lustrous version of his suffering, and a handsomely classical departure than previously heard. Pärt's climactic reinvention of his artistic path makes this album a sumptuous account of a composer charged with a silent worship.

Arvo Pärt - Fratres (1997) {Naxos 8.553750}
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© 1997 Naxos / HNH International | 8.553750
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Minimalism

This is serial composition, or variation. The first 8 tracks are the same work in 8 very different styles. See if you even notice it is the same piece. Different instruments, and arpeggios. I like it all. The first and the 8 Cellos version are perhaps my favorites, if you do not want them all. Also the 2nd track, a hard almost scratchy arpeggio version. I am getting into Arvo Part a little more now, though this is more or less his "Bolero"; a signature piece that builds on a rather simple, repeating theme, which is not like anything else by him- or anyone else. Well, you have to love a Soviet era composer who when the authorities began to annoy him, rather than cower or placate them with what they asked for, became more religious and started a series of variations (according to the liner notes, 2 taboos they warned him about). Gulag or bust? Well he's still around.

ECM made history in 1984 with the release of Tabula rasa, the first of the jazz label’s equally influential New Series. Not only did this beloved recording introduce many to the music of Arvo Pärt, but it also clarified producer Manfred Eicher’s classical roots and fed into the likeminded sensibilities Eicher was then bringing with increasing confidence to his groundbreaking approach to jazz. It is therefore appropriate that Pärt, the imprint’s shining star, should be represented here more than any other composer or performer.

Five of the discs on this six-CD set are previously released Naxos recordings of a broad variety of works by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. The set offers a generous sampling of works spanning the composer's career, from his polystylistic Collage über BACH (1964) for orchestra to his 2001 Nunc dimittis for a cappella chorus.

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s four symphonies tell the story of his musical life. It’s a tale bookended by the skittish and uncompromising Symphony No. 1, written while he was a student in 1963, and the Fourth from 2008—a beautifully sculpted masterpiece in his own “tintinnabuli” style in which textures rise, fall, and repeat like pealing bells. Much more than fine recordings of fascinating works, these are ideal performances directed by one of Pärt’s most trusted conductors, compatriot Tõnu Kaljuste. Listen out for the beautiful oases amid the noise in the final movement of Symphony No. 2 and the chant-infused Symphony No. 3, containing moments of pure beauty.

Nominated for a Grammy (2002) for best Classical Album, Orient Occident represents the newest and, more importantly, epic portrayal of historical music to date. Regardless of any award, this album will continue its reputation as the most important record of new music in 2002, for the very fact that in the world of new music, Arvo Pärt is a puritan's feast. On the threshold of being a globally resonating composer, Pärt remains full of powerful ideas in film, stage, oratorio and orchestral music. Pärt's talent surmises the infinite variety of spiritual symbolism. He is a composer deeply rooted in the ancestrally religious past of his native Estonia. Further removed from Roman Catholic preaching, the Eastern European Orthodox church took to a more enlightening approach―renunciation. Pärt has, indeed, spent much of his time clarifying his search for richness in life's meaning. His work is as timeless as the art of work is meaningless. This meaningless struggle has dispirited Pärt's yearning soul, and with his newest music we are drawn to his misty, remote retreat. In Orient Occident, not only does Pärt recreate a shameless force of magnitude as a great work (three great works to be exact: "Wallfahrtslied", "Orient & Occident", and "Como Cierva Sedienta"), he has reorganized his approach making this change a revelatory turn from past familiar traits. Having rediscovered himself half dozen times before this year, Pärt introduces a lustrous version of his suffering, and a handsomely classical departure than previously heard. Pärt's climactic reinvention of his artistic path makes this album a sumptuous account of a composer charged with a silent worship.