Repusic

Time flows and stands still in this contemplative music that sounds old and new and yet neither old nor new, naive art and higher mathematics, a child‘s game, a glass bead game, like first steps and last words – all rolled into one. The compositions that Arvo Pärt has been writing for almost half a century defy any labelling or ideology. In his anachronistic art, the Estonian composer – who emigrated from the Soviet Union with his family in 1980 and found a refuge in (West) Berlin – chose the path of renunciation, reduction, and voluntary poverty. The most famous testimony to this musical conversion is undoubtedly Fratres (“Brothers”), which was written in 1977 but has appeared in all kinds of different instrumentations and versions over the years. In its ascetic austerity and almost liturgical solemnity, Fratres is reminiscent of a communal prayer or a spiritual act.

Johann Wilhelm Wilms (1772-1847) was a German who made his home in Amsterdam, where he was a pianist, organist, orchestral flautist and teacher. His Sixth Symphony won a prize in Ghent in 1820, and was published by Breitkopf and Härtel; the Seventh dates from the early 1830s, but wasn’t performed in its entirety until Concerto Köln disinterred it in 2002.

Johann Wilhelm Wilms (1772-1847) was a German who made his home in Amsterdam, where he was a pianist, organist, orchestral flautist and teacher. His Sixth Symphony won a prize in Ghent in 1820, and was published by Breitkopf and Härtel; the Seventh dates from the early 1830s, but wasn’t performed in its entirety until Concerto Köln disinterred it in 2002.

Dreamtime is a spellbinding collection of works for flute and orchestra which, in Emmanuel Pahud’s words “expresses and gives form to the composers’ most personal, spiritual or dreamlike visions”. The album ranges wide both culturally and chronologically, embracing works by Mozart, Reinecke, Busoni, Takemitsu and Penderecki, and inhabits a dimension “populated by incantations and prayers, in which imagination is woven together and then unravels, and where desire is roused by fantasy”. Pahud is partnered by the Munich Radio Orchestra and its Principal Conductor, Ivan Repušić.