GMG Classical Music Forum

I know only a pärt of his works: Arbos, Te deum, Berliner Messe, Fratres.
I'm not particularly fond of sacred music and on the whole I've found him innocuos and a bit too accessible, that is pretty atmospheric but non-significant. I'm asking if there are works worth to be known apärt from the ones I cited, maybe I'll take a chance to change my mind.

You might try Pro et Contra, for cello and orchestra, written in 1966 for Rostropovich.  It is on this CD below which includes Pärt's two symphonies, also written prior to his enormous stylistic change.  (I have not yet heard them, nor this recording.)  I heard the piece live at Juilliard a couple of years ago and liked it very much.  It is radically different from what most people know as typical of his output -- much more complex and abstract -- and could have come from a completely different composer. 

Arvo Pärt: Pro et Contra, Symphonies 1 and 2 (Paavo Järvi, Truls Mørk, Kalev Kuljus, Arvo Leibur, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra)

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EK24V7ESL._AA240_.jpg)

--Bruce

Quote from: Doctor_Gradus on May 31, 2007, 08:38:38 AM
I'm not particularly fond of sacred music and on the whole I've found him innocuos and a bit too accessible, that is pretty atmospheric but non-significant.

IMO that is not how I would describe his better choral works (he does get a bit repetetive in the less-significant ones such as the mass, though). I find him absolutely gripping when at his best. The Stabat Mater is mandatory IMO, probably his greatest composition, the Passion is also remarkable although the length tests many peoples patience.

Tabula Rasa is another that needs to be heard, again, the second movement could test ones patience, but the first movement shows him at his best and the contrast between the movements is startling.

Edit: One feature of some of his early instrumental writing in his "mature" style (eg Tabula Rasa, Summa, Cantus, Fratres, Festina Lente) is just how confident they sound - written at a time when serialism was popular, this is blatently melodic, semi-minimal and atmospheric music written masterfully.

I would also add Fur Alina and Spiegel im Spiegel (on the ECM disc if possible) to the "must hear" list.

His Passion is the only one I can stand to listen from beginning to end

Quote from: Lethe on May 31, 2007, 10:25:03 AM
IMO that is not how I would describe his better choral works (he does get a bit repetetive in the less-significant ones such as the mass, though). I find him absolutely gripping when at his best. The Stabat Mater is mandatory IMO, probably his greatest composition, the Passion is also remarkable although the length tests many peoples patience.

Tabula Rasa is another that needs to be heard, again, the second movement could test ones patience, but the first movement shows him at his best and the contrast between the movements is startling.

Edit: One feature of some of his early instrumental writing in his "mature" style (eg Tabula Rasa, Summa, Cantus, Fratres, Festina Lente) is just how confident they sound - written at a time when serialism was popular, this is blatently melodic, semi-minimal and atmospheric music written masterfully.

I would also add Fur Alina and Spiegel im Spiegel (on the ECM disc if possible) to the "must hear" list.

Is Tabula Rasa the work that includes the two movements: Ludus and Silentium? And I guess you're praising "Ludus", which infact really moved me at first listening, though now I'm unable to enjoy it with the same interest. Silentium, instead, is a sort of static snapshot of great impact and sound, but that's it in my opinion.
For what concerns Spiegel in Spiegel for violin and piano, no I cannot honestly enjoy something like hearing two piano pupils working on rhythm subdivision for 10 minutes ;D

I'll give a listen to Stabat Mater and Pro e contra, as bhodges adviced (thanx).

I am very fond of his Litany.

It's a setting of the Prayers of St John Chrysostom i.e. a cycle of 24 prayers, one for each hour of the day and night - very spare and astringent, by no means easy listening.  For me it conjures the image of a nocturnal landscape - possibly as sculpted by Jake & Dinos Chapman (http://www.whitecube.com/artists/chapman/hell/) - illuminated by a pool of light which moves around in a wide arc, selectively revealing the detail in 24 places per orbit.  Spooky, but calming.

Quote from: bhodges on May 31, 2007, 08:51:08 AM
Arvo Pärt: Pro et Contra, Symphonies 1 and 2 (Paavo Järvi, Truls Mørk, Kalev Kuljus, Arvo Leibur, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra)

This reminds me, I have the BIS disk with Symphonies 1-3 as well as Pro et Contra, which I haven't heard in ages (and retain no memory of) :

   (http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/21R5D3MPRTL._AA130_.jpg)

Going to give it a listen now.

Quote from: Lethe on May 31, 2007, 10:25:03 AM
IMO that is not how I would describe his better choral works (he does get a bit repetetive in the less-significant ones such as the mass, though). I find him absolutely gripping when at his best. The Stabat Mater is mandatory IMO, probably his greatest composition, the Passion is also remarkable although the length tests many peoples patience.

Tabula Rasa is another that needs to be heard, again, the second movement could test ones patience, but the first movement shows him at his best and the contrast between the movements is startling.

Edit: One feature of some of his early instrumental writing in his "mature" style (eg Tabula Rasa, Summa, Cantus, Fratres, Festina Lente) is just how confident they sound - written at a time when serialism was popular, this is blatently melodic, semi-minimal and atmospheric music written masterfully.

I would also add Fur Alina and Spiegel im Spiegel (on the ECM disc if possible) to the "must hear" list.

Bingo! I agree with every word, every recommendation! This is the hard core of Part's tintinabuli pieces - I'd add only Es sang vor langen Jahren, which is possibly, along with the Stabat Mater, my favourite Part piece. After these pieces Part began to dilute the style somewhat, to equally diluted effect IMO. Although I'd include the Miserere amongst those diluted pieces (though not so much as others such as Litany) I'd also say that it is one of Part's most powerful pieces and I recommend it wholeheartedly too. I've talked about this before, about the unusual situation Part must have found himself in. Here he was, having discovered/created/whatever this perfect style and technique - I use the word advisedly because, like it or not, the tintinabulism technique is absolutely flawless from every angle, on its own terms. What could he do now - repeat himself? I don't think so, for all sorts of reasons. Or try to develop the technique? Well, that's what he did, adding variations and extensions to the technique which, whilst it broadened its scope, lessened its impact. That's why, to restate my first point, that small list of pieces:

Stabat Mater
Passio
Fratres
Tabula Rasa
Festina Lente
Spiegel im spiegel
Es sang vor langen Jahren

will IMO stay the central, perfect focus of his output. And we can hardly complain!

Quote from: Doctor_Gradus on May 31, 2007, 10:43:42 AM
Is Tabula Rasa the work that includes the two movements: Ludus and Silentium? And I guess you're praising "Ludus", which infact really moved me at first listening, though now I'm unable to enjoy it with the same interest. Silentium, instead, is a sort of static snapshot of great impact and sound, but that's it in my opinion.
For what concerns Spiegel in Spiegel for violin and piano, no I cannot honestly enjoy something like hearing two piano pupils working on rhythm subdivision for 10 minutes ;D

I think, with both these pieces, if you were to quietly concentrate on the process in each piece - spell-binding and utterly logical - you might overcome your problem; listening to them as one listens to other 'pretty' tonal music may well lead to exasperation. They call for a kind of attentive meditation, I think. The power of Part's tintinabulism to create these beautiful but completely process-driven pieces is really quite incredible, and the reason I call it perfect. In Spiegel im spiegel the process is at its most bare and fragile, and it's very beautiful and moving to follow the way the line expands note by note, I think. In Tabula Rasa, simply because of the larger forces and more diverse material, it is somewhat more complex, but very clear once understood. The best example I have of the overwhelming logic of the technique is anecdotal; indulge me:

When I was about 15 I began to collect the ECM Part LPs avidly, and an early purchase was the Passio disc. This work starts with a choral exhortation, before settling down for about 70 minutes of the Passion itself; at the very end, though, with Jesus' words 'consumatum est', the music changes course somewhat, and then concludes with another sequence of choral writing.

Well, remarkably, even though I was hearing the piece for the first time, I was able, follwoing the words, to tell before it happened exactly what Part would do in that last minute or so of music; indeed, I sang along with the music!

Much later - last year, actually - I got hold of Paul Hillier's wonderful book on Part and was astonished - or maybe not - to find that, indeed, although the end of Passio is so different from what comes before, it is at the same time implicit in all that has gone before. The fact that I 'predicted it' was then, I suppose, less surprising. Incidentally, I consider this clear evidence of the power of analysis to explain responses to music; in this case it told me, 15 years after the even, precisely why my peculiar response to the piece had occured.

Great post, Luke!

Quote from: lukeottevanger on May 31, 2007, 11:07:18 AM
Stabat Mater
Passio
Fratres
Tabula Rasa
Festina Lente
Spiegel im spiegel
Es sang vor langen Jahren

I think we're starting to build a Part consensus here. These ones are what I'd consider central (haven't heard Passio yet, but the rest are), along perhaps with the Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten and the very brief Fur Alina.

The earlier works are less impressive to me. The polystylistic pieces merely remind me of how much further Schnittke took the style, while though the transitional Third Symphony (with its echoes of Stravinsky and Sibelius) and Wenn Bach bezuchtet hatten get an occasional play, they're not nearly as striking as the early tintinnabular pieces.

Recent Part...well, I just find it a pale shadow of his best work.

Quote from: edward on May 31, 2007, 12:18:54 PM
I think we're starting to build a Part consensus here. These ones are what I'd consider central (haven't heard Passio yet, but the rest are), along perhaps with the Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten and the very brief Fur Alina.

Yes, I thought I'd included the Cantus, it has an obvious place on that list. Fur Alina is a vital piece in his development, and valuable to us pianists, though not quite pure tintinabulation yet...only a tiny step away. The piano Variations are proper full-on tintinabulation, though.

Quote from: edward on May 31, 2007, 12:18:54 PMThe earlier works are less impressive to me. The polystylistic pieces merely remind me of how much further Schnittke took the style, while though the transitional Third Symphony (with its echoes of Stravinsky and Sibelius) and Wenn Bach bezuchtet hatten get an occasional play, they're not nearly as striking as the early tintinnabular pieces.

Recent Part...well, I just find it a pale shadow of his best work.

Wenn Bach bezuchtet hatten... it's a guilty pleasure of mine, something like a snake shedding its skin. You can see the later Part bursting to get out (especially Tabula Rasa) but there's still references to tradition in there waiting to be sloughed off. Bach in this case, obviously, and the tradition of tone-painting.

As for recent Part, I am sad to say I agree with you.

Wonderful responses Luke. Very informative. Thanks for giving me some ideas on where to focus.

I have to admit, as a Pärt novice, I think it is the accessibility of his work that may make it so irresistible to me. Certainly, I find nothing insignificant about Es sang vor langen Jahren ... and his Stabat Mater is simply moving.

Thank you lukeottevanger, an enlightning post. Yes, my listening of Paert has been pretty superficial I admit it. One thing is I didn't expect him to be so admired and loved on the GMG; I've read critics which tended to acknowledge his mastery of course, but to relegate him in a dimension of pure "easy listeining", without serious historical significance.

Quote from: Doctor_Gradus on June 01, 2007, 01:46:01 PM
Thank you lukeottevanger, an enlightning post. Yes, my listening of Paert has been pretty superficial I admit it. One thing is I didn't expect him to be so admired and loved on the GMG; I've read critics which tended to acknowledge his mastery of course, but to relegate him in a dimension of pure "easy listeining", without serious historical significance.

You're welcome. I think anyone who dismisses Part as mere 'easy listening' is wildly missing the point, and probably just being snobbish. Part's music is not meant to be used as background music; it should be listened to carefully. Although the techniques he uses are much simpler in essence than those of much contemporary music, that means that one can really grasp them fully if one pays attention, leaving the mind free to become absorbed in the music, its sensuous effects and its unfolding at the same time. The music is unusual in that its beauty is rigorous and intense, not merely pretty.

I must say that for me, one of the unique things about Part is the way that his tintinabuli technique affects the relationship of melody and harmony. I've never heard anything like it in any other composer - the harmony is twined around the melody; they become one and the same; it is almost as if the harmony has been turned on its side and is thus heard melodically too. Part, jokingly, gave this phenomenon a formula: 1+1=1 but less flippantly this relates to his view of the relationship between Man and God, the latter enfolding and supporting the former whilst being a unity with him, I suppose. I do not share Part's beliefs but I can readily hear them working in the fundamentals of his music, and I find it deeply impressive and moving.

A composer who can manage this profoundest of relationships between form, content, philosophy and musical effect is more than just another composer of easy-to-listen-to sacred music a la...no, no names!

Thanks for those very interesting posts, Luke.

Still, I'd like to mention that I've heard Part's music live several times - which probably means I heard it abiding by your terms (nothing else to do but listen :'() - and it just doesn't do much for me. Listening to recordings isn't any better. I really find it simplistic and, frankly, a bit boring.

(I know I should be posting this on your thread but sometimes we have to let these flame wars break out somewhere else so that no one notices they are contrived...)

Maciek

Quote from: MrOsa on June 01, 2007, 02:24:41 PM
Thanks for those very interesting posts, Luke.

Still, I'd like to mention that I've heard Part's music live several times - which probably means I heard it abiding by your terms (nothing else to do but listen :'() - and it just doesn't do much for me. Listening to recordings isn't any better. I really find it simplistic and, frankly, a bit boring.

(I know I should be posting this on your thread but sometimes we have to let these flame wars break out somewhere else so that no one notices they are contrived...)

Maciek

What pieces did you hear, out of interest?

Live?

Adagio for piano trio
Cecilia, vergine romana
Magnificat
Miserere
Orient & Occident
Silouans Song

I'm not sure if the list is complete...

I know, none of your favorites are here.

Anyway, my judgement was a bit rash. I do listen to Part on CD from time to time and enjoy doing so. It's just that he isn't a favorite (far from it). Even if (for example) Gorecki is less subtle, the reason I enjoy Gorecki more is precisely because of a conscious raw primitivity I find in some of his pieces (2nd Symphony or Muzyczka IV - paradoxically, the less "primitive" ones ;))...

Quote from: MrOsa on June 01, 2007, 02:37:30 PM
Live?

Adagio for piano trio
Cecilia, vergine romana
Magnificat
Miserere
Orient & Occident
Silouans Song

I'm not sure if the list is complete...

I know, none of your favorites are here.

Well, no, I love the Miserere, if only because that tremendous Dies Irae outburst shows that Part still had his fire. But you're right, I don't rate the other pieces so much. I still think the Stabat Mater is probably the finest and most perfect of all his mature pieces, and also, with its string trio interludes, one of his most attractive - but I'm sure you've heard it already

Quote from: MrOsa on June 01, 2007, 02:37:30 PMAnyway, my judgement was a bit rash. I do listen to Part on CD from time to time and enjoy doing so. It's just that he isn't a favorite (far from it). Even if (for example) Gorecki is less subtle, the reason I enjoy Gorecki more is precisely because of a conscious raw primitivity I find in some of his pieces (2nd Symphony or Muzyczka IV - paradoxically, the less "primitive" ones ;))...

You know, I don't listen to Part very much either, though that might surprise you on the strength of my last posts. It's just that I have unbounded admiration for the technique and style he evolved - it's something extraordinary for any composer, and it's almost unique to find a style so isolated, so personal, so complete.

In fact, perhaps one reason I don't listen to Part as much as I might is that the style is so strong, I fell I can recreate its essence in my head quite easily. ???

Well then, as unfortunate as it may sound for our flame war endeavour, it seems we can easily meet half way. Or maybe even I'm closer to your outlook than I initially thought - if the doses are small I have to admit Part is a fascinating composer. How sad it is when discussion forums like this one are disrupted by sudden reconciliations...

(BTW, there must be something seriously wrong with this spell checker, if it was ready to accept a spelling such as "endaveour"...! :o)

The prolation canon of Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten - I fall asleep to it every night!

Quote from: Mystery on June 03, 2007, 10:28:34 AM
The prolation canon of Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten - I fall asleep to it every night!

Now, is that a good thing or not? ;)

The two pieces that got me interested in Part were Tabula Rasa and Fratres for 12 cellos (and the violin/piano version - the two most effective incarnations IMHO). The 12 cello version of Fratres especially is astonishing in terms of what Luke describes - the harmony and melody are in fact on and the same - the same chord sequence descending moaly by thirds from the highest to the lowest range of the cello. What is most surprising is the astonishing harmonies consist only of a single stream of 3 note chords above a held drone of a fifth on G and D. Tabula Rasa is much more cnventional in a sense, and initially one gets the feeling that it might be some kind of homage to a vivaldi concerto. But it really is an astonishing work. I think you're right Luke that people are thrown off by the tonal beauty of the sound, but they don't realise quite how structured and carefully thought out the tintinabuli technique is - its just as rules based as Serialism in some senses.

I also love Spiegel in Spiegel, which may be his most significant piece.

Anyway - pre minimal part is interesting if not as important. I'm also very fond of the tiny cello concerto (c.8 or 9 minutes). Its in his collage style, which essentially mixes atonality, aleatoric techniques and Bachian polyphony in starkly juxtaposing ways.

I'm quite keen on the pre-minimal Symphonies too, especially the third which could be seen as a bridge between the older style and the minimal style. Its completely diatonic, and uses very small repeating fragments to create neo-classical (often quasi-Bachian) structures. Difficult to describe (Actually it's quite a lot like Barber's first Symphony + Bach + minimalism.)

This CD is still the best Part CD after all these years. All the performances are perfect, somehow everything is just played exactly as it was meant to be played.

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/61FMPFPEVKL._SS500_.gif)

http://www.amazon.com/Tabula-Rasa-Arvo-Part/dp/B0000262K7/ref=sr_1_8/002-0464639-0016022?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1180900131&sr=8-8

Do you have any particular recommendation with regards to Es sang vor langen Jahren and the Stabat mater? This one has both - any good?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/P%C3%A4rt-Choral-Works-Arvo/dp/B0001XAQ5K/ref=sr_1_2/202-8355540-6495045?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1180901248&sr=8-2

Quote from: Guido on June 03, 2007, 12:11:02 PM
Do you have any particular recommendation with regards to Es sang vor langen Jahren and the Stabat mater? This one has both - any good?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/P%C3%A4rt-Choral-Works-Arvo/dp/B0001XAQ5K/ref=sr_1_2/202-8355540-6495045?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1180901248&sr=8-2

Just get the Arbos disc on ECM. Great performances of both by the people they were written for.

Quote from: edward on June 03, 2007, 12:32:00 PM
Just get the Arbos disc on ECM. Great performances of both by the people they were written for.

If only it was that simple - I have the original Arbos LP, and I'd love to upgrade it to CD. But it's always been impossible to get hold of when I've looked in the past. I haven't heard the disc Guido links to, but there's another one - on Black Box I think (I ought to know as I have it, but I can't remember right now!) - which has both pieces and a couple of other interesting things. It's good, it will do fine - but the ECM is better; the ECM recordings are always better than the competition in Part, I think.

Quote from: lukeottevanger on June 03, 2007, 01:05:19 PM
If only it was that simple - I have the original Arbos LP, and I'd love to upgrade it to CD. But it's always been impossible to get hold of when I've looked in the past.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arbos-Arvo-Part/dp/B0000260TR (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arbos-Arvo-Part/dp/B0000260TR)

Thank you! So simple in the end - but it's always been around £50 on the marketplace when I've looked before. :)

Quote from: lukeottevanger on June 03, 2007, 01:11:56 PM
Thank you! So simple in the end - but it's always been around £50 on the marketplace when I've looked before. :)

There's two different ASINs for most of the earlier Part ECM discs: one lists as in print and the other as OOP at inflated marketplace prices.

You just have to make sure you get the right one in the search: sometimes they're poorly indexed.

Ah, I see. It's been troubling me for a long time that I hadn't completed my LP-to-CD Part-on-ECM update, but as I do have the original knocking around, I'd never really looked into it too far.

That number has particularly good liner notes, IIRC. ECM just got everything right on those issues, and as Guido says, that first one, Tabula Rasa etc., is still probably the single finest Part disc of all. But the Hilliards and Part were made for each other, and so I treasure the other discs too, Arbos, Passio and Miserere. Things start to lose that startling focus a little with the Te Deum disc (no Hilliards either), but then, as we've said before, it is the music that is the problem there.

Quote from: bhodges on May 31, 2007, 08:51:08 AM


Arvo Pärt: Pro et Contra, Symphonies 1 and 2 (Paavo Järvi, Truls Mørk, Kalev Kuljus, Arvo Leibur, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra)

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EK24V7ESL._AA240_.jpg)

--Bruce

Right today I've purchased the above. Since my stereo is broken, I've downloaded the CD on Itunes. I'm looking forward to deepen my short knowledge of Pärt.

I have the ATMA Classique (http://www.atmaclassique.com/en/index.asp) recording with the Stabat and Es sang vor lagen Jahren from Guido's link. It is quite good on its own. I do not have the ECM release to compare it against, but I would still recommend it. Daniel Taylor sings wonderfully; I'm sure it would make for a nice compliment to Susan Bickley's performance on ECM.

That Arbos CD arrived today. What a beautiful piece Es sang vor langen Jahren is. Thats the only thing I've listened to so far.

Also I just discovered the piano variations - one wishes it could have been just a little longer - rising and fading before you've noticed the 200 seconds is up.

Listening more to the CD. Two pieces stand out above the other for me: Es sang vor langen Jahren and the Stabat Mater. The other piece I don't think I would put up there with his finest instrumental works (Fratres, Spiegel in Spiegel, Tabula Rasa, Cantus, fur Alina and the piano variations as already mentioned.) But yeah - such astonishingly beautiful stuff - Its all so sad - not what one traditionally associates with religious elements in music - usually celebratory or awe inspiring but these pieces seem to be born of state of deep sorrow and an acute awareness of the transience of human experience.

Quote from: Guido on June 11, 2007, 01:10:29 PM
Listening more to the CD. Two pieces stand out above the other for me: Es sang vor langen Jahren and the Stabat Mater. The other piece i don;t think I would put up there with his finest instrumental works (Fratres, Spiegel in Spiegel, Tabula Rasa, Cantus, fur Alina and the piano variations as already mentioned.) But yeah - such astonishingly beautiful stuff - Its all so sad - not what one traditionally associates with religious elements in music - usually celebratory or awe inspiring but these pieces seem to be born of date of deep sorrow and the transience of human experience.

That consensus is growing. You've picked out the two standouts, I think. Tabula Rasa, Cantus, Spiegel in Spiegel and Fratres are every bit as fine - but there is something very special about those two (the use of string trio/duo helps, imo)

Quote from: Guido on June 11, 2007, 09:09:27 AM
Also I just discovered the piano variations - one wishes it could have been just a little longer - rising and fading before you've noticed the 200 seconds is up.

Those have long since been theoretical favourites of mine - theoretical because I am unsure how I am supposed to listen to something so short, no matter how attractive I find them. On a CD they will be completely overshadowed by everything else, a sort of blink-it-and-miss-it thing, but repeating them a few times would also be pointless, no matter how appealing it is to try... (If he wanted them to be that long, he'd have written them longer.) It doesn't help that he hasn't written very much in a similar format, so the CD I own with them on features quite different piano music by other composers to fill it out. These variations are IMO possibly the most ripped-off of Pärt's output. You can hear mockeries of them being used to sell Audis, Mercedes, all sorts of "high end" products in TV commercials.

Quote from: Guido on June 11, 2007, 01:10:29 PM
The other piece I don't think I would put up there with his finest instrumental works

(Assuming this is the Arbos disc still) Is the piece you mention Pari Intervallo? Pärt's post-'genius period' instrumental works fare a lot worse than his choral works (of which a lot remain attractive). They tend to sound like sonic wallpaper (some Kancheli pieces have a similar effect) - like melodically uninspired "broody" film music. They put forth very little to justify their existence IMO :-\

A side note, I don't have a clue what to make of the (2x) Arbos tracks on that ECM disc. I tend to skip them rather than have to adjust the volume so I am not deafened by them, or miss almost all the detail in the quieter tracks due to the relatively low volume required for them (we can't all have soundproof music rooms :P).

Quote from: Lethe on June 11, 2007, 02:30:50 PM
(Assuming this is the Arbos disc still) Is the piece you mention Pari Intervallo? Pärt's post-'genius period' instrumental works fare a lot worse than his choral works (of which a lot remain attractive). They tend to sound like sonic wallpaper (some Kancheli pieces have a similar effect) - like melodically uninspired "broody" film music. They put forth very little to justify their existence IMO :-\

ooh, no, if Guido did mean Pari Intervallo, I have to slightly disagree that it is of lesser quality. It's a small work, but it comes from Part's best vein, most similar of all to Spiegel in Speigel, I think - a calm, totally process-driven instrumental work.

Quote from: lukeottevanger on June 11, 2007, 02:35:46 PM
ooh, no, if Guido did mean Pari Intervallo, I have to slightly disagree that it is of lesser quality. It's a small work, but it comes from Part's best vein, most similar of all to Spiegel in Speigel, I think - a calm, totally process-driven instrumental work.

Looks like I gotta give that one a fair relisten :)

Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka is the one I meant. Not on the Arbos CD - I should have been clearer. Its about 3 and half minutes.

Pari Intervalo is for organ is it not? Its actually very very similar to the piano Variations.

Pari Intervalo is another good work I think, though I generally have an aversion to organ music.

On a completely unrelated note: I have wondered about arranging Tavener's Protecting Veil for cello and organ, as a piano reduction just wouldn't work with those long held notes (nor has one been prepared)

Quote from: Guido on June 11, 2007, 02:39:46 PM
Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka is the one I meant. Not on the Arbos CD - I should have been clearer. Its about 3 and half minutes.

Pari Intervalo is for organ is it not? Its actually very very similar to the piano Variations.

Yes, it is for organ. The process it not the same as the variations - which are quite sophisticated rhythmically (lots of broken barlines) but also very pure tintinabulation. For some reason, though they are the 'real thing' those variations are among my least favourite Part. I think the imposition of the variation principle is fairly forced, and the shape of each variation is too quickly over - a simple up-down - for it to register as anything other than a surface gesture. Part works better when the shape takes longer to evolve, IMO - as in Pari Intervallo or Speigel in Spiegel, for instance.

Guido, I can see TPV transferring very well to organ - I can hear those cluster bell chords sounding as good as or better than the original, and some weird intimate voicing for the mirror-harmony 'viol' sections too...yes, it would work beautifully...

Quote from: Guido on June 11, 2007, 02:39:46 PM
Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka is the one I meant. Not on the Arbos CD - I should have been clearer. Its about 3 and half minutes.

Pari Intervalo is for organ is it not? Its actually very very similar to the piano Variations.

Thanks for the clarification :) I rate the variations very highly, although do wish they were longer (my disc is with Ustvolskaya and Gorecki - two composers I have less interest in, bah) as their brevity and simplicity do work against them for being considered a significant area of his output.

I dunno why, but the majority of Pärt's organ music that I've heard (I believe on a CD called Tintinnabulum which I borrowed a while ago) didn't make an impact at all. Strange considering he's a church music composer, although the organ is a pretty daunting instrument to listen to, so much of the sound or impact can be changed with different recording techniques or different sounding instruments...

Quote from: lukeI have a disc on New Albion by Christoph Moosmann, which couple all the Part organ works (at the time of recording) with pieces by Cage and Scelsi. An interesting disc.

Pari Intervallo ...
Annum per annum ...
Mein Weg hat Gipfel und Wellentaler...
Trivium...
But I need to return to this disc and reassess. Tonight's bedtime listening, I think....

Well, I did listen again. Sad to say that my memory of Mein Weg... had let me down; it wasn't the piece I was thinking of, and though it's in Part's purest line, I don't find it among his most attractive pieces. Pari Intervallo remains the one of the four that works best, to my mind.

Edit - oops, that was supposed to be a new post, replying to the quoted one of my own... ::) Still, you get  the idea

The thing about the piano variations is that I dont think they're meant to be about the same religious depths as the other works. They're called Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka  (literally Variations for Arinuschka's Convalescence) - each variations grows in stature from the last one, tiny waves, always recuperating to new strengths. Like the 12 version of fratres (which moves from very high to the richest range of the cello - mysterious and unsure to sonorous and life affirming), or in Spiegel im Spiegel (where each scale adds another note, another expressive step) they grow almost imperceptively, but I think considering it doesn't pretend to be a major work, it works perfectly - I would love to have something written like that for me if I was ill!

Quote from: lukeottevanger on June 11, 2007, 02:58:43 PM
I have a disc on New Albion by Christoph Moosmann, which couple all the Part organ works (at the time of recording) with pieces by Cage and Scelsi. An interesting disc.

Don't miss out on the Scelsi In Nomine Lucis while listening. I adore that piece, for reasons I don't understand.

I've recently listened to the Hilliards in Passio, having waited for it to show up cheap and second hand. It's certainly the Part I like, though I don't find it has the intensity of Stabat mater. Must listen more, though I'm having trouble putting together 70 minutes without a break these days.

Quote from: edward on June 11, 2007, 04:25:07 PM
Don't miss out on the Scelsi In Nomine Lucis while listening. I adore that piece, for reasons I don't understand.

It's an awesome piece; I get slightly confused by it though: on this disc it is one piece, In nomine lucis, lasting about 11 minutes; I have another all-Scelsi disc which includes two pieces, In nomine lucis I and In nomine lucis V each of which is about half the duration of the piece on the Moosmann (and in fact, though the liner notes are unclear, they seem to be different versions of the same piece, the first rendered  chromatically, the second quarter-tonally). But if the Moosmann recording is just the other two pieces conflated - and I'm not sure if it is, though it's hard to tell in music dominated by drones as this is - what happened to In nomine lucis #2-4?  ??? More detailed listening required if I'm to discover the answer...

Quote from: edward on June 11, 2007, 04:25:07 PMI've recently listened to the Hilliards in Passio, having waited for it to show up cheap and second hand. It's certainly the Part I like, though I don't find it has the intensity of Stabat mater. Must listen more, though I'm having trouble putting together 70 minutes without a break these days.

I find the unremitting tone and texture of Passio, coupled with its awesome and audible logic, combine to make it about the most intense and extended listening experience in Part's music - quite an achievement . The sort that one can't listen to very often, I think. To my mind, the Hilliards are, once again, the perfect ensemble for this music. And I always gasp in wonder at the perfection of the instrumental playing on that CD - the parts are so simple, but so exposed: any tiny deviation from accuracy would be cruelly exposed, and there would seem to be no excuse for it.

Quote from: lukeottevanger on June 12, 2007, 12:48:37 AM
It's an awesome piece; I get slightly confused by it though: on this disc it is one piece, In nomine lucis, lasting about 11 minutes; I have another all-Scelsi disc which includes two pieces, In nomine lucis I and In nomine lucis V each of which is about half the duration of the piece on the Moosmann (and in fact, though the liner notes are unclear, they seem to be different versions of the same piece, the first rendered  chromatically, the second quarter-tonally). But if the Moosmann recording is just the other two pieces conflated - and I'm not sure if it is, though it's hard to tell in music dominated by drones as this is - what happened to In nomine lucis #2-4?  ??? More detailed listening required if I'm to discover the answer...

I think there's only I and V, which--from what I've heard--do seem to be different realizations of the same material. Friedemann Herz's organ recital on Koch also seems to conflate them into one pieces.

Confusingly, the Fondazione Isabella Scelsi's website merely describes the piece as for organ, in memory of Franco Evangelisti, and about 8 minutes long. No mention of I and V.

Quote from: edward on June 12, 2007, 03:52:37 AM
I think there's only I and V, which--from what I've heard--do seem to be different realizations of the same material. Friedemann Herz's organ recital on Koch also seems to conflate them into one pieces.

Confusingly, the Fondazione Isabella Scelsi's website merely describes the piece as for organ, in memory of Franco Evangelisti, and about 8 minutes long. No mention of I and V.

I notice Wikipedia lists it here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Giacinto_Scelsi), mentioning: "In Nomine Lucis (2 pieces; for electric organ) - 1974". If it helps, that seems to imply they are two movements, although that doesn't explain the confusing designations of each of them.

Thank you both - that helps...sort of!

Well i seem to be the Part fanatic here, love almost everything he touches 8)

Anyways here is a cool video.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9pdLRs0h6VQ&mode=related&search=

He even explains fur elina in the piano, amazing footage! i wish i could meet the man!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MZTGYxVGzQg&mode=related&search=
Silouans Song, i worship this piece.

Discuss!

Thanks for starting this - here is a previous Part thread (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,1265.0.html) which I was enjoying participating in. You'll be pleased to see that you are far from the only 'Part fanatic here'!  :)

Oh i see i'm not alone, good read.

One thing i've picked up, well most people i know wouldn't find Part acessible but i think, quite boring, but he is indeed popular, so at least there's people with good taste outhere  ;D

And yet another big fan of Pärt here.  The first work I ever heard was Tabula Rasa, back in the 1980s at the New York Philharmonic, and I can't say that I really liked it, but it made a strong impression.  (Sometimes good to be skeptical of first hearings.)  But then I heard Fratres (the version with the cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic) and that was the turning point.  (I've probably heard Fratres enough for awhile, but only because it seems to be programmed over and over in its various incarnations, i.e., for cellos, for violin and piano, violin and string orchestra, etc.)

Then I heard the Hilliard Ensemble, live, in Passio, which has a very stark palette, but can also be very mesmerizing if you're in the mood.  Shortly after that I bought their recording, and then many of the ECM recordings that began coming out.  The one I keep coming back to is this one, conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste, with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir.  I especially like the Te Deum (1984-85). 

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Y7GJ6Y3VL._AA240_.jpg)

One more favorite: Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten (1977) for string orchestra and bell (yes, just one!), which I got to hear live as well, with Riccardo Chailly and the New York Philharmonic about two years ago.  Lovely.

--Bruce

Wow seing those pieces live must be awesome... I WISH!

I had forgotten that you are in...Portugal!  No Arvo Pärt performed there?  I would think some of his works would be very popular, especially some of the smaller things like Summa or Spiegel Im Spiegel.

--Bruce

Quote from: bhodges on July 27, 2007, 11:12:25 AM
I had forgotten that you are in...Portugal!  No Arvo Pärt performed there?  I would think some of his works would be very popular, especially some of the smaller things like Summa or Spiegel Im Spiegel.

--Bruce

It's possible some of his pieces have been performed, i just don't know... i just started attending concerts latelly too( classical ones of course), so that might have something to do with it. ;D

'Spiegel Im Spiegel' is a great favourite of mine. It seems to me to be like a meditation. Every phrase is longer than the one preceding it. The piece really takes me to another place.

I have most of the pieces mentioned, but have never been to hear any of his work live. Passio was the first piece of his that I heard, I have not listened for some time, must get it off the shelf.

Mike

Wouldn't it be a good idea to merge the two Pärt topics (into a one-Pärt topic)? Just a thought, no obligation - for the thread originator to decide. 0:)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2QTxvmlA95Q&mode=related&search=
A little interview with Pärt, made by Björk. She's so cool to expose artist like Pärt, and in her music, i can see the influence there actually.

I can honestly say that Fratres was almost singularly responsible for my exploration of contemporary music. It is so engaging on so many levels yet seems so simple; I wish I had taken up violin and/or piano as a child.

The quality of performances on every Pärt CD I own is almost universally excellent too; granted my collection of his work is less than 10 CDs in number, but.... That definitely makes the exploration of his oeuvre quite worthwhile.

That's the beauty of Pärt's music, so simple yet so effective.

I am another fan of his and therefore feel I must take Part in this thread.  ;)

I need to revisit some of my CDs of his. 

Another fan, although also a heretic one, as I prefer the EMI/CfP Tabula Rasa/Fratres disc to the ECM one *hides*

Quote from: Maciek on July 27, 2007, 01:03:46 PM
Wouldn't it be a good idea to merge the two Pärt topics (into a one-Pärt topic)? Just a thought, no obligation - for the thread originator to decide. 0:)

I take it that the silence signifies consent?

Quote from: Maciek on July 31, 2007, 02:45:17 PM
I take it that the silence signifies consent?

Oh sure, i just saw that now  ;D

Just watch(downloaded cof cof) Pärt's 24 preludes to a fugue, very nice documentary, he is such an humble man, for instance telling the young members of the orchestra he was working to sign a poster for him, he should be the one giving autographs!

Anyway, i can upload this if someone wants to, it's big(700mgs, 1.30h aprox) but it's a nice watch. Very nice to see and hear the opinions of one of your favorite composers. (in my case :D )
Too bad we don't have the same for the old masters...

A superb Pärt disc:

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/412NK6EV83L._SS500_.jpg)

The last Pärt CD I bought was Berliner Messe on Naxos. Somehow it managed to kill my interest for now. I hope I find Pärt again someday...

IMHO the Berliner Messe is not one of Part's finer pieces, so not to worry...

Quote from: lukeottevanger on August 04, 2007, 12:35:40 PM
IMHO the Berliner Messe is not one of Part's finer pieces, so not to worry...

I agree, it's not something i like to say about Pärt, but i get a bit bored listening to it sometimes, well nobody's perfect ;D

 $:): Reporting successful merger. 8)

Quote from: lukeottevanger on August 04, 2007, 12:35:40 PM
IMHO the Berliner Messe is not one of Part's finer pieces, so not to worry...

Seconded--though I think he's done worse since, sadly--plus the Naxos recording isn't as good as the ones on ECM.

Quote from: lukeottevanger on August 04, 2007, 12:35:40 PM
IMHO the Berliner Messe is not one of Part's finer pieces, so not to worry...

No it isn't.

Fratres, Summa, Cantus in Memory of..., Tabula Rasa, Collage über BACH, Symphony No. 3.

Is there something else worth exploring?

Quote from: 71 dB on August 04, 2007, 02:49:22 PM
No it isn't.

Fratres, Summa, Cantus in Memory of..., Tabula Rasa, Collage über BACH, Symphony No. 3.

Is there something else worth exploring?

I'd list Passio, Es sang vor langen Jahren, Spiegel im Spiegel, Fur Alina, Variations for the Healing of Arinushka and above all Stabat mater. (I've got a soft spot for Wenn Bach Bienen gezuchtet hatte but I have to be honest and say it's not quite as strong as the other pieces I've mentioned here.)

Quote from: edward on August 04, 2007, 02:57:13 PM
I'd list Passio, Es sang vor langen Jahren, Spiegel im Spiegel, Fur Alina, Variations for the Healing of Arinushka and above all Stabat mater. (I've got a soft spot for Wenn Bach Bienen gezuchtet hatte but I have to be honest and say it's not quite as strong as the other pieces I've mentioned here.)

That was fast response! Thanks edward!

i like orient and occident a lot too,  Silouans Song, lamentate is great as well, miserere has one of the finest vocal climaxes i ever heard, i like the litany album aswell...and so on....a lot of good stuff for me 8)

wait? you didn't list Festina Lente? that's probably Pärt's best piece imo.

What interesting news today, to revive this (surprisingly) dormant thread.  Pärt's publisher has put up the entire score to his new Symphony No. 4, "Los Angeles" (2008), available here (http://issuu.com/universaledition/docs/paert4thsymph).

--Bruce

Might as well post it here also. Some day someone will read the link, open it and be surprised at the value of this collection. Posted it at the Boulez and Carter thread, now comes Pärt, and who knows, I might even catch the attention of the Glass and Messiaen fans:

http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product//3078398.htm

Go, Lis, go!  :-*

Has anybody "listened" at least mentally to the score of the Pärt Symphony 4?

There are "Pärts" which seem Herrmannesque, as in Bernard Herrmann, and not just because it is a string symphony (with percussion).  See especially the opening of the Third movement.

Was the premier broadcast anywhere?

Just found out that conductor Jeffrey Milarsky and the Wordless Music Orchestra will do the New York premiere of Pärt's Symphony No. 4 at Le Poisson Rouge (http://www.lprnyc.com) on Sunday, May 10.  (For anyone unfamiliar with the venue, it's the former Village Gate, and serves food and drink.)

--Bruce

Quote from: bhodges on January 28, 2009, 12:09:54 PM
Just found out that conductor Jeffrey Milarsky and the Wordless Music Orchestra will do the New York premiere of Pärt's Symphony No. 4

Happen to have link for download of recording of the premiere (LA/Salonen?), it's 256 kbps mp3, sound is decent but wouldn't know know whether it is broadcast or in-house recording.

http://narod.ru/disk/4999131000/part-4.zip.html

(to download - type in captcha numbers and then click on green button right beneath)

Just to bump up the thread, fans of Arvo Pärt may be interested in  the new EMC disc that has been recently released (http://www.amazon.com/In-Principio/dp/B001O2BR5K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1236681444&sr=1-1) featuring four premiere recordings. A video excerpt of In Principio (same as the one on the Amazon page, but larger) can be seen  here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxKqg0Fwsro).

Quote from: Drasko on January 29, 2009, 03:25:22 AM
Happen to have link for download of recording of the premiere (LA/Salonen?), it's 256 kbps mp3, sound is decent but wouldn't know know whether it is broadcast or in-house recording.
http://narod.ru/disk/4999131000/part-4.zip.html
(to download - type in captcha numbers and then click on green button right beneath)

Well, I was going to say thank you Drasko, but you no longer exist, presenting me with a problem of unresolved gratitude. 

Quote from: Symphonien on March 10, 2009, 02:58:25 AM
Just to bump up the thread, fans of Arvo Pärt may be interested in  the new EMC disc that has been recently released (http://www.amazon.com/In-Principio/dp/B001O2BR5K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1236681444&sr=1-1) featuring four premiere recordings. A video excerpt of In Principio (same as the one on the Amazon page, but larger) can be seen  here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxKqg0Fwsro).

Interesting. ECM's first four Part discs are IMO the finest Part discs of all, and were of course so important in the process of his becoming better known, the first one in particular. If the later discs haven't impressed me so much, that's not because of ECM but because of Part, who as I've said before on this thread, seems to me to be an impossible situation and is necessarily composing music that doesn't have the purity and urgency of his mid-70s to mid-80s output. Nevertheless, I'll be pleased to get this disc if only for La Sindone, which I've been waiting for - I have the score and would like to hear it realised.

The key, I suppose, is: avoid impossible situations!

In his case, the impossible situation, I think, is that he attained a style that had such inherent perfection he could take it no further without lessening its impact. So I'm not sure he'd have wanted to avoid it. (I'm also sure he would disagree with my assessment of the who state of affairs!)

This is what I said about it on page 1 of the thread. As that page shows, I'm not alone in this assessment of Part's recent music, so there might be something real going on here...

QuoteI've talked about this before, about the unusual situation Part must have found himself in. Here he was, having discovered/created/whatever this perfect style and technique - I use the word advisedly because, like it or not, the tintinabulism technique is absolutely flawless from every angle, on its own terms. What could he do now - repeat himself? I don't think so, for all sorts of reasons. Or try to develop the technique? Well, that's what he did, adding variations and extensions to the technique which, whilst it broadened its scope, lessened its impact. That's why, to restate my first point, that small list of pieces:

Stabat Mater
Cantus
Passio
Fratres
Tabula Rasa
Festina Lente
Spiegel im spiegel
Es sang vor langen Jahren

will IMO stay the central, perfect focus of his output. And we can hardly complain!

Quote from: sul G on March 10, 2009, 05:53:17 AM
In his case, the impossible situation, I think, is that he attained a style that had such inherent perfection he could take it no further without lessening its impact. So I'm not sure he'd have wanted to avoid it. (I'm also sure he would disagree with my assessment of the who state of affairs!)

You're certainly right in that impossible situations cannot always be avoided, and/or will to do so may be absent.

An article in this weekend's Wall Street Journal written by a certain Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, who could add "Countess" to the front and "y Santa Clara" to the end of her moniker and use it, along with $5.00, to buy caffeine at Starbucks, explains the significance of Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa.

"Corinna" does not do badly for a while, but then we hit something inevitable, as inevitable as the boy-loses-girl second act in a Diane Lane movie:

"From the late 17th century onward, classical music used tonality to favor certain notes of the scale over others, allowing for the development of a musical theme that the listener intuitively understands: A musical idea ventures forth from the harmonic home to which it must eventually return. The resulting tension creates a sense of linear progress or narrative. Serial music abolished this system by making all 12 notes of the scale equal—with the result that they sound equally meaningless. Mr. Pärt's tintinnabuli compositions, by contrast, revolve around a single static tonality that invites contemplation. He once told students his aim was "to concentrate on each sound, so that every blade of grass is as important as a flower." Tonality acts as a hidden pole that gently pulls the music inward."

(My emphasis above)

I look forward to a day when notes will not be judged by the color of their tonality, but by the expressive content of their character.

See:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204456604574201730467852724.html

Quote from: Cato on June 06, 2009, 06:28:27 PM
I look forward to a day when notes will not be judged by the color of their tonality, but by the expressive content of their character.

You have a dream.  I have a dream, too...involving Diane Lane.

P.S.  What I know about music theory would fit on the back of a business card, but I know what I like, and I like Tabula Rasa like Koko loved her kitty.

Quote from: DavidRoss on June 06, 2009, 07:02:59 PM
You have a dream.  I have a dream, too...involving Diane Lane.

P.S.  What I know about music theory would fit on the back of a business card, but I know what I like, and I like Tabula Rasa like Koko loved her kitty.

Well, I am old enough to be her father, but I know that dream!   0:) 

And I find it disconcerting to see her doing wrinkle-cream commercials!   :o

Anyway, we will ignore "Corinna's" comments on serialism: it does seem as if Pärt has found his niche through his meditative style, proving that Schoenberg was right about there being good possibilities in C major: they are just harder to invent! 

Quote from: DavidRoss on June 06, 2009, 07:02:59 PM
P.S.  What I know about music theory would fit on the back of a business card, but I know what I like, and I like Tabula Rasa like Koko loved her kitty.

I am at your service, should you wish, mon ami.

Quote from: Cato on June 07, 2009, 05:16:27 AM
Anyway, we will ignore "Corinna's" comments on serialism: it does seem as if Pärt has found his niche through his meditative style, proving that Schoenberg was right about there being good possibilities in C major: they are just harder to invent! 

Hear, hear!

I'm not going to read this whole thread.  :P

Where do I start with Part? Something tranquil would be nice.

Quote from: MN Dave on June 12, 2009, 07:16:35 AM
I'm not going to read this whole thread.  :P

Where do I start with Part? Something tranquil would be nice.

The ECM disc with Tabula rasa:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61FMPFPEVKL._SS500_.gif)

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 12, 2009, 07:18:51 AM
The ECM disc with Tabula rasa:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61FMPFPEVKL._SS500_.gif)

I knew you were going to say that. Thanks.  0:)

I second Karl's ECM disc recommendation.  In addition to Tabula Rasa, it has everything I'd recommend to someone new to Pärt: two versions of Fratres, and Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten (beautiful piece for string orchestra and a single bell).

--Bruce

I'd almost suggest his St John Passion (which is a fine piece), but it doesn't really fit the something tranquil request.

We're missing a Dave post in this thread  8)

I like Part's style, which seems to mimic the processes of nature. It's all about gradual accretion versus huge climaxes & contrasts and is more understated than other contemporary composers. That's exactly why it's so unique.

I have especially enjoyed his orchestral works such as Tabula rasa & the more recent piano concerto Lamentate. There's plenty of melody and harmony in these works, as well as some contrast. One just has to listen more perceptively.

I haven't yet heard many of his choral works, so the information provided by those who have is most welcome...

For fun I've been playing his little piano piece from the 70s, Variations for the Healing of Arinushka. Though it's not difficult, the score is strange in some ways, with the simple melody spread out over three staves.

By the way, can anyone tell me:

1. Who was Arinushka?
2. What did she need to be healed of?
3. Was she in fact healed?

I just picked up this CD after hearing Robert Sierra's Folias on my local (and much maligned on another thread) classical radio station, WCRB. Included is a wonderful arrangement of Pärt's Fratres. While putting the CD together, Manuel Barrueco requested that Pärt compose a piece for guitar to be included on the recording. Pärt suggested the new version of Fratres instead.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5125606C5YL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

Quote from: Szykniej on August 11, 2009, 11:16:22 AM
Pärt suggested the new version of Fratres instead.

Lazy sot.

What do you think Pärt heard (or probably "saw", as I doubt that he had heard much of it by 1976) in Britten's music to have such a strong reaction to it? I can see perhaps Britten's dedication to the human voice through his whole output, secular and liturgical, and the "sparsening" of his language in pieces such as the Turn of the Screw, I suppose...

Quote from: Lethe on December 28, 2009, 11:56:40 PM
What do you think Pärt heard (or probably "saw", as I doubt that he had heard much of it by 1976) in Britten's music to have such a strong reaction to it? I can see perhaps Britten's dedication to the human voice through his whole output, secular and liturgical, and the "sparsening" of his language in pieces such as the Turn of the Screw, I suppose...

got to admit not too well versed in Britten although there are only couple of pieces i know- Les Illuminations i discovered recently and had big impression on me  but i do know that what first attracted me to Part was his Canctus for Benjamin Britten (suspect its the only piece of Part many people know) whether there is any connection with Britten would not like to speculate but as you say i guess Brittens love of the human voice could be the connection  ::)

Part's words on the matter:

QuoteIn the years past we have had many losses in the world of music to mourn. Why did the date of Benjamin Britten's death - December 4, 1976 - touch such a chord in me? During this time I was obviously at the point where I could recognise the magnitude of such a loss. Inexplicable feelings of guilt, more than that even, arose in me. I had just discovered Britten for myself. Just before his death I began to appreciate the unusual purity of his music - I had had the impression of the same kind of purity in the ballads of Guillaume de Machaut. And besides, for a long time I had wanted to meet Britten personally - and now it would not come to that.

Hope that helps.

Quote from: Guido on December 29, 2009, 08:37:01 AM
Part's words on the matter:

Hope that helps.

tks guido - not sure it does really but i guess it would help if i knew Brittens music better - hes one of those composers who has a kind of musical block in my understanding hmmmmm

I would say I know his oeuvre fairly well and I think I know what Part means, though I'd find it equally difficult to actually put it into words - at any rate, Britten is certainly a composer who is worth getting to know.

Man, that quote is cryptic :D That description does go some way to set Britten apart from contemporaries such as Walton, so there must be something to it, although I am also at a loss to explain. But I do feel that pieces like the church parables, serenade, nocturne, les illuminations, and a host of sacred music could bear this feeling out. The sacred music in particular has an unusually human quality in its function - often aimed at amateurs or children.

A composer who is expert in Pärt will deliver a paper in Boston. (http://henningmusick.blogspot.com/2009/12/look-back-look-ahead.html)

Just run across a broadcast recording of piece by Part that hasn't been officially recorded this far, as far as I know. The piece is L'Abbe Agathon for soprano and eight cellos, from 2004. The broadcast is from 2008, Copenhagen Denmark, Patricia Rozario/Danish National Orch./Tonu Kaljuste. Here:

http://files.mail.ru/CQY889

(wait 10 seconds countdown than click on link saying L'Abbй Agathon.mp3)

text & translation:

L’abbé Agathon
L’abbé Agathon, se rendant un jour dans
la ville pour vendre de menus objets,
trouva le long de la route un lépreux qui
lui demanda:
“Oų vas-tu ?”
L’abbé Agathon lui dit: “A la ville vendre
des objets.”
Le lépreux lui dit: “Par charité, porte-moi
lā-bas.” L’ayant pris, le vieillard le porta
ā la ville.
L’autre lui dit alors: “Dépose-moi ā
l’endroit oų tu vends tes objets.” Et
l’abbé Agathon fit ainsi. Quand il eut
vendu un objet, le lépreux lui demanda:
“Combien l’as-tu vendu ?”
“Tant.”
“Achčte-moi un gâteau.” Il l’acheta.
Quand il eut vendu un autre objet,
l’autre lui dit: “Et celui-ci, combien
l’as-tu vendu ?”
“Tant.”
“Achčte-moi telle chose.” Le vieillard
l’acheta encore. Quand il eut vendu tous
ses objets et qu’il voulut partir, le lépreux
lui dit:
“Tu t’en vas ?”
“Oui.”
“Je t’en prie, par charité, reporte-moi ā
l’endroit oų tu m’as trouvé.” L’abbé Aga-
thon prit le lépreux et le reporta ā cet
endroit. Celui-ci lui dit alors: “Béni es-tu,
Agathon, par le Seigneur du ciel et de la
terre.”
Agathon leva les yeux mais il ne vit plus
personne, car le lépreux était un ange du
Seigneur venu le mettre ā l’épreuve.



The abbot Agathon, surrendering one
day in the city to sell objects, came
across on the road a leper who asked
him:
“Where are you going?”
The abbot Agathon told him: “To the
city to sell objects.”
The leper says: “By charity, carry me
there.” Having lifted him, the old man
carried him to the city.
The other then tells him: “Put me
down in the place where you sell your
objects.” And the abbot Agathon did.
When he had sold an object, the leper
asked him: “How much did you make?”
“So much.”
“Buy me a cake.” And the abbot did
so. When he had sold another object,
the leper asks: “And this one, how
much did you make?” “So much.”
“Buy me such a thing.” The old man
did again buy it. When he had sold all
his objects and he wanted to leave, the
leper asked him:
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“I do pray of you, by charity, to take
me back to the place where you found
me.” The abbot Agathon took the
leper to this place and the leper said:
“Blessed are you, Agathon, by the Lord
of the sky and the earth.” Agathon
raised eyes but he didn’t see anybody
anymore, because the leper was an
angel of the Lord come to put him to
the test.

Cheers, I've been wanting to hear that for a long time!

Fantastic - thanks very much for this! On first listen, this excites me more than any other recent Part I have heard for quite a while.

Here's another zip of the 4th symphony Helsinki broadcast that didn't work out so well in the listening thread :P (Does anybody have the Salonen one in lossless? I can only find mp3s.) A choice of links in case Rapidshit is being obnoxious to anyone:

http://rapidshare.com/files/338636334/partsym4.zip
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4N3MJA31
http://www.zshare.net/download/71482717b615026b/
http://depositfiles.com/en/files/9ac49pav3
http://www.filefactory.com/file/a2d7eh5/n/partsym4.zip

If you can't play flac files, download the Foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/download) player. It's a lightweight and versatile app that you should find increasingly useful as lossless becomes the standard.

tks Lethe - download worked for  me this time - im always a sucker for AP'S shorter string works which seem to be used as fillers in quite a few cd's . As you say this seems to be another but stretched to 30 mins or so. As always has some beautiful moments and reluctant to give an opinion after one listen but seems to drag in places - time will tell i guess  :D

Just noticed this but tks to Drasko for L'Abbe Agathon
liked this on first hearing although thought was rather different from his usual output- quite lyrical but spare at same time !

Just a heads up to all Part fans, there will be a commerical recording on ECM of Part's new Symphony No. 4 released on Sept. 7th in the United States. I think it's already been released in Europe. I'm really looking forward to hearing it. Here is the front cover:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/312JsNMYo4L.jpg)

Missed the Sydney premiere of Part's 4th earlier in the year. Damn - & it was absolutely FREE too, put on by Sydney Conservatorium. Anyway, I'm sure I'll get another chance to see it at some time or other. There are quite a few live performances of Part in Sydney this year. In May, I went to see the Berliner Messe & another choir will be doing it in November. It was interesting to see the version with organ, as I am familiar with the one with string orchestra. I think the organ added more clarity, and being in a small church, the acoustic was pretty good. I also hope to see the Sydney Youth Orchestra play Tabula Rasa in their final concert in December. That will be a very good way to round off the year. I like Part's music, his going back to ancient church musical traditions offers a kind of welcome contrast to the sometimes more "aggressive" modernists whose music I also like. There doesn't seem to be as much overt dynamic contrast in some of Part's music, but I like the subtlety and calmness (although Tabula Rasa's first movement has plenty of dissonance)...

Oh, there's dissonance in all Part, his style is built on it, even if in a very personal way. It's the aspect of his work which I love the most, actually, these dissonances which function unlike any other dissonance. The music seems to have been turned on its side, as someone once said, so that melody and harmony are one and function as one - his wife put it: 1+1=1 in Part's music, and it's an amazing sound.

Yeah I was going to say, dissonance is Part's music - and is a very strong part of what gives it it's unique sound and incredible beauty.

Arvo's 4th symphony was performed at the proms recently with salonen conducting, it was televised and it included interview with the composer and he came out on stage to warm applause. I think it was the UK premiere. I am not a big fan and yet I have 5 of his CDs! Watch out for that on youtube. I have noticed televised proms appearing there.

J

Quote from: Luke on August 27, 2010, 12:07:44 AM
Oh, there's dissonance in all Part, his style is built on it, even if in a very personal way. It's the aspect of his work which I love the most, actually, these dissonances which function unlike any other dissonance. The music seems to have been turned on its side, as someone once said, so that melody and harmony are one and function as one - his wife put it: 1+1=1 in Part's music, and it's an amazing sound.

Very good post, Luke. I agree. There's a lot of dissonance in his music that most people can't quite pick up on. It's also not an upfront dissonance either like Berg or Ligeti, it's subdued. Gorgeous sound.

I've been getting back into Part's music lately. Listened to Te Deum and Berliner Messe earlier. Now, I'm about to listen to Tabula Rasa.

Has anyone heard this new recording with Kristjan Jarvi conducting Part's music?

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Sb0JpX9tL.jpg)

Quote from: Mirror Image on November 18, 2010, 07:40:22 PM
Has anyone heard this new recording with Kristjan Jarvi conducting Part's music?

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Sb0JpX9tL.jpg)

Arvo Pärt, DJ Hero ;)

Don't know if this was mentioned yet, but ECM will be releasing a deluxe edition of Tabula Rasa with a 200 pp. hardback book this December.

Quote from: Grazioso on November 19, 2010, 04:09:57 AM
Don't know if this was mentioned yet, but ECM will be releasing a deluxe edition of Tabula Rasa with a 200 pp. hardback book this December.

Yes, and oh so expensive. I'll stick to the original.

Quote from: Grazioso on November 19, 2010, 04:03:22 AM
Arvo Pärt, DJ Hero ;)

Have you heard this recording, Grazioso? It has a new chorus and string orchestra arrangement of Stabat Mater on it that looks interesting. I might just go ahead and pull the trigger on this one since nobody seems to have heard it.

Quote from: Mirror Image on November 26, 2010, 11:54:45 AM

Have you heard this recording, Grazioso? It has a new chorus and string orchestra arrangement of Stabat Mater on it that looks interesting. I might just go ahead and pull the trigger on this one since nobody seems to have heard it.

Not yet, but I do find the cover amusing: looks like he's playing the turntables :) What you mention about a new arrangement does point up one of my pet peeves about Pärt: his fiddling with the same material again and again instead of composing more totally original works.

Quote from: Grazioso on November 28, 2010, 04:15:30 AM
Not yet, but I do find the cover amusing: looks like he's playing the turntables :) What you mention about a new arrangement does point up one of my pet peeves about Pärt: his fiddling with the same material again and again instead of composing more totally original works.

I think it's a fair criticism to say Part rearranges his music way too often, but at the same time, I think he won't top Te Deum or Litany or Tabula Rasa or Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten anytime soon. If these were the only Part works I heard, I think it would be enough, for me, to say that he was a true musical voice with something original to say, which is more than I can say for some contemporary composers.

Quote from: Mirror Image on November 28, 2010, 09:29:35 AM

I think it's a fair criticism to say Part rearranges his music way too often, but at the same time, I think he won't top Te Deum or Litany or Tabula Rasa or Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten anytime soon. If these were the only Part works I heard, I think it would be enough, for me, to say that he was a true musical voice with something original to say, which is more than I can say for some contemporary composers.

I totally agree. What he does, he does extremely well. Yet I do hate to see a composer repeating himself too much or, worse, turning into a sort of self-parody--which would be easy for Pärt, given all the mystical trimmings he and his music have been decked with.

Quote from: Mirror Image on November 26, 2010, 11:54:45 AM
I might just go ahead and pull the trigger on this one since nobody seems to have heard it.

It's getting some good reviews - I admit I'm intrigued:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129282688

http://www.audaud.com/article?ArticleID=7994

I've got a little story to share, sort of an introduction as this is my first post on this forum. Last spring, I was walking through Lesser Town here in Prague with my headphones on, listening to Cantus, and while I was passing next to one of the palaces, a haunting scene came into view. The fence of the palace was besieged by flowers and photographs, with candles flickering here & there, and a bunch of people whose gloomy faces were lit by the candlelight. Then it hit me – this was the evening after the Smolensk plane crash tragedy and the palace was a Polish embassy. That realization, combined with Pärt's music rising & falling like waves crashing over the deck of a ship in a storm at sea, completely overwhelmed me and I had to stop right there for a few minutes and wait until the piece was over. To this day, I still get shivers when I recall that moment. When Górecki died seven months later, my initial reaction was hearing the long, sustained finale of Cantus in my mind again.

Quote from: Mirror Image on November 19, 2010, 06:20:07 PM
Yes, and oh so expensive. I'll stick to the original.

It definitely is expensive (unless you're as lucky as one of my friends, who've stumbled upon one at an used bookstore in NY and bought it for 25 $) but a nice artifact to have, if you're a fan of the work. I got it for Christmas and giving Tabula Rasa another few close listens, the ECM recording seems unbeatable (although with Fratres, I very much prefer Gil Shaham's interpretation).

Hi Rinaldo, and such a beautiful snapshot you wrote as your first on GMG! (Another fan of Pärt here, too.) Feel free, if you like, to post a little about yourself in the "Introductions" section, here:

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/board,2.0.html

Anyway, welcome, and enjoy yourself. Would love to hear reports about what music you're hearing in Prague!

--Bruce

Quote from: Rinaldo on January 24, 2011, 09:46:41 AM
I've got a little story to share, sort of an introduction as this is my first post on this forum. Last spring, I was walking through Lesser Town here in Prague with my headphones on, listening to Cantus, and while I was passing next to one of the palaces, a haunting scene came into view. The fence of the palace was besieged by flowers and photographs, with candles flickering here & there, and a bunch of people whose gloomy faces were lit by the candlelight. Then it hit me – this was the evening after the Smolensk plane crash tragedy and the palace was a Polish embassy. That realization, combined with Pärt's music rising & falling like waves crashing over the deck of a ship in a storm at sea, completely overwhelmed me and I had to stop right there for a few minutes and wait until the piece was over. To this day, I still get shivers when I recall that moment. When Górecki died seven months later, my initial reaction was hearing the long, sustained finale of Cantus in my mind again.

It definitely is expensive (unless you're as lucky as one of my friends, who've stumbled upon one at an used bookstore in NY and bought it for 25 $) but a nice artifact to have, if you're a fan of the work. I got it for Christmas and giving Tabula Rasa another few close listens, the ECM recording seems unbeatable (although with Fratres, I very much prefer Gil Shaham's interpretation).

Good to see another Part fan on here. Tabula Rasa is wonderful work, and, like you, I prefer Gidon Kremer/Schmittke on ECM to the DG recording with Shaham. For me, it's a definitive performance. I don't own the new deluxe edition (or whatever it's called), but if I didn't already own the original it would be nice to own.

I recent heard the Stabat Mater re-written by the composer for choir and string orchestra - it's one of the more horrible things I have been subjected to recently, and possibly the worst thing yet churned out by the composer. I then played the Miserere and it is growing on me. I used to have a love-hate relationship with the piece for its somewhat obnoxious combination of some of Pärt's finest tintinnabuli writing (especially the opening, a true sequel to the Stabat Mater's aching buildup), but then it goes all loud and meandery and... I just don't know. But I'm enjoying it much more this time around.

Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Pettersson on October 10, 2011, 06:52:20 AM
I recent heard the Stabat Mater re-written by the composer for choir and string orchestra - it's one of the more horrible things I have been subjected to recently, and possibly the worst thing yet churned out by the composer.

Surely you love the original for three strings and three voices though?

Quote from: Guido on October 10, 2011, 09:42:35 AM
Surely you love the original for three strings and three voices though?

Indeedie - it's what made the re-working so depressing, it went from Ferrari to Cadillac.

I like Pärt's work for choir, even the recent ones, so I was maybe listening with too much optimism - every quality that the music had became blunted.

Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Pettersson on October 10, 2011, 09:44:33 AM
Indeedie - it's what made the re-working so depressing, it went from Ferrari to Cadillac.

I've refused to touch the reworking for precisely this reason: I can't imagine how it would be positive, given that the intimate, confessional nature of the original version is key to its effect. I suppose he must have had artistic reasons for doing it, but I can't for the life of me figure out what they'd be.

I may have to poke into Miserere again; I've thus far had rather mixed feelings about it for the same reasons as you, but I was certainly more positive about it than most if not all of the music from the last 20 years.

I understand precisely what Sara says about the Miserere - she is on the mark with her description. Nevertheless, somehow, I've always thought of this piece as the last of Part's great tintinabular sequence, rather than the first of the more depressingly unsatisfying tintinabulism-with-tweaks pieces he has written since. I have no technical reason to back this up, since the Miserere is full of such tweaks. But somehow, it just works, to my ears. For a start, the opening, as Sara says, is pure tintinabulism in its most refined form. The moment in the second verse when the second voice enters with 'amplius' (iirc) might be the passage I would choose to represent Part's music to a newbie, if I had to do so using only five bars of music. And then the 'loud and meandery' bit - well, think of this as an intrustion, an interpolation, which appears and disappears shortly afterwards, leaving only a very slow recovery in its wake, and it makes sense. In other words, it is not 'inside' the form of the piece but imposed from outside. It is not the inevitable next step, as everything else that happens in Part's greatest works seems to be - and this utter inevitability is what I think distnguishes him from other composers. But in itself that interpolation is every bit as inevitable as any of Part's earlier tintinabular works (it is essentially the same compositional process as in the Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten or Arbos, though put through a series of variations). That self-contained perfection is why I can accept this interpolation easily; to me it is not in the slightest 'meandery.' It is the following music, the long climb out of the abyss, which seems to me to point to Part's later 'tweaks' more obviously, but somehow here he is still, to my ears, in touch with that magical wellspring he had been tapping for the last 15 or so years. Primarily, the tweaks involve key changes, really,  and as such they remove that tonal fixity which is such a hallmark of the best tintinabular Part (Later, IMO weaker pieces like the Beatitudes do this again, I think) But they do, at the same time, parallel the emotional trajectory of the piece very compellingly, and the final shft to the major almost has the miraculous inevitability of the end of the Passion. Meanwhile, those delightful little instrumental interludes, with their step-by-step increases in animation, are not a million miles away from the similar 'dance' interludes in the Stabat Mater.

Which I too will never ever want to hear in a strong orchestra version, btw!

Danke for the reply, it will be nice to listen to the second half with more of a roadmap in mind, using your suggestions.

Maybe some people could give their thoughts on the less-discussed pieces from the 90s and onwards? I am playing ECM's Orient Occident disc, and while I hadn't made a point to avoid is, despite me liking the composer in general I just hadn't thought to listen to it yet, perhaps because I never hear any discussion about the works on it (save the Wallfahrtslied).

Orient & Occident is interesting. I feel that at the tail-end of Pärt's tintinnabuli period, his works for string orchestra became a bit wilfully evasive (Silouans Song, Trisagion). They retained the aesthetic and intellectual "meaning" that had inspired a lot of the composer's pieces, but were now less concerned with actually writing something beautiful or engaging, and come across as somewhat dour. O&O is a bit different, it has a great pulsing and nagging idea which is teased around for the duration of the piece. It feels theatrical, slightly declamatory, and it's a fun listen and reminds me slightly of new-school composers such as Tüür.

Como cierva sedienta is very attractive. Rather less inward than his classic works, again somewhat dramatically paced, although I have yet to engage with the structure. The choral writing is different from earlier pieces as well, and feels closer to the mainstream of this style (Kancheli, Tavener) than it perhaps should, but the orchestral accompaniment is lithe and tidy. A saving grace in my ears is that I detect a certain strangeness to it, which when compared to a somewhat bog-standard work like In Principo is refreshing.

Also, any opinions on the Litany piece? It seems positioned just right to be good - between the decent Te Deum and the wonderful Kanon Pokajanen - but I've yet to love it. It does keep drawing my attention, which is usually a positive thing for me.

I'm out of my comfort zone over here, but a neighbourly howdy-do is always in order.

Listened to the Naxos recording of Cantus in Memory last night no less than 3 times. Enjoyed it immensely. But I was very struck by its similarity to the music of... Vangelis! Not making fun of either: I was much taken decades ago by V's Opera Sauvage and Chariots of Fire and all that. Anyone else hear what I do?

I found this passage from Peter J. Schmelz's Such Freedom if only Musical (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195341937?ie=UTF8&tag=3636363-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0195341937): Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw interesting. Schmelz recounts arranging interviews with various figures, and how he was completely unable to meet with Pärt:

QuoteHis spokesman informed me that 'The period of the Soviet Union is a completely closed chapter for him and he is not prepared to evoke this era again,' betraying the clearest sense of non or even anti-nostalgia that I encountered, a refusal to even acknowledge let alone discuss his memories.

I guess I should feel grateful that Pärt still allows performances of the pieces he wrote in the 1960s (many of which are IMHO better than what he's writing now).

Yip, there's some really good stuff from early in his career, although the first two symphonies I found not particularly interesting - are they worth revisiting?

Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevna Pettersson on December 02, 2011, 11:10:11 AM
Yip, there's some really good stuff from early in his career, although the first two symphonies I found not particularly interesting - are they worth revisiting?

I would say no, but this is because I'm not a fan of Part's earlier style. The only symphony I found worth my time from his pen is the third. The fourth (Los Angeles) was disappointing. I think it's fair for me to say that Part has run out of ideas or simply needs to change styles.

Quote from: CRCulver on December 02, 2011, 11:06:48 AM
I found this passage from Peter J. Schmelz's Such Freedom if only Musical (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195341937?ie=UTF8&tag=3636363-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0195341937): Unofficial Soviet Music During the Thaw interesting.

BTW Culver, thanks for the rec/review of that book. Looks up my alley.

Another post because it's quite hard to get discussion on Pärt's early music. I rate the following highly:

Nekrolog (a slab of go-for-the-throat expressive rumblings - immature but accessable), Collage on B-A-C-H, Pro et Contra (these two are a real high point, colourful and fun), Credo (a bit garish, but good!).

Sarah Was Ninety Years Old, despite being a later work, seems like a throwback to this period - not in style but in its misfit status.

Does anyone have any opinion on Our Garden and Perpetuum mobile?

Looks like another Part ECM recording will be released:

[asin]B008U0FI7M[/asin]

I'll definitely be buying this one. :) I didn't even know it was coming out until I searched Part ECM recordings on Amazon.

Ah, someone save me from the Baltic Horde! Arvo Part and the 'Festina Lente' to the rescue. Ahhh,... whew, it was getting rough there for a while.

I've enjoyed the wallowing pieces, but haven't been able to crack the vocal stuff. Don't think I liked 'Passio',... the 'Miserere', eh, I had to wait all that time for that big moment,... the thing with the 'J' and the 'P' in the title, I don't recall falling over for.

I used to have that Jarvi/Chandos disc, and did not like his earlier stuff; like Silvestrov's early stuff but not the obverse/inverse?...

What are the go=to Part pieces... BESIIIDES 'Festina Lente', '...Benjamin Britten', 'Summa', or 'Fratres',... or the 'Siloan's Song'...

I did a little rooting around last night and did find some Part I liked:

De Profundis

Salve Regina
Beatus Patronus(?)

Magnificat
The Beatitudes

Te Deum (the longest piece on this list)

Da Pacem Nomine
Nunc Dimittis
Dopo in vittoria

Wassern zu Babel
Littlemore Tracts

... and then some smaller...

Woman...Alabaster
I Am the True Vine

7 Magn. Antiphons
Missa syllab.




All the available cds seem a bit spread out. What do you think is the go-to disc for these pieces?

How do you feel about Part TODAY, in 2014, as opposed to when he became a Hit  back in the... '90s? Right? (oy- brain cells...bzzt....bzzzzzt...bzzzt)

I thought I needed him, but when I walk outside- or shower- or think deeply- I feel like I'm getting that "Part feeling" without the need of the music. So?...

I mean, when I get in THAT MOOD, am I going to go for Part, or Finzi?

I'd rather just have 'Festina Lente' go on for a couple of hours! Wish Feldman would have wroteTHAT!

Quote from: snyprrr on April 27, 2014, 03:26:19 PM
How do you feel about Part TODAY, in 2014, as opposed to when he became a Hit  back in the... '90s? Right? (oy- brain cells...bzzt....bzzzzzt...bzzzt)

I thought I needed him, but when I walk outside- or shower- or think deeply- I feel like I'm getting that "Part feeling" without the need of the music. So?...

I mean, when I get in THAT MOOD, am I going to go for Part, or Finzi?

I'd rather just have 'Festina Lente' go on for a couple of hours! Wish Feldman would have wroteTHAT!

A three year old post, but I'll respond anyway. ;) I feel Pärt is still an effective composer and what I mean by that is his music still resonates and touches me. This is no easy feat as I've heard all of the important pieces during his career, especially that important period in the late 70s when you had a string of works like Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, Fratres, Tabula Rasa, Stabat Mater, Spiegel im Spiegel, among others which I've heard dozens upon dozens of times and I still hear something new in them with each listen. I don't rate some of his later works as highly as his earlier ones (mainly the ones from the late 70s up until the early 90s), but that's not to degrade these works of course, but to indicate that I believe his best work is behind him now, although I do really like all of the works on the In Principio album even though it didn't really break any new ground for the composer.

Quote from: Mirror Image on October 02, 2017, 08:16:50 PM
I believe his best work is behind him now

I recently listened to my entire Arvo Pärt collection over a few weeks; I own recordings of all acknowledged pieces by the composer. It's interesting that one can trace some stylistic evolution in the tintinnabuli years, from the comparatively austere pieces of the late 1970s and 1980s, through the more sumptuous works of the 1990s, and then a few years of remarkably tortured, restless works (Lamentate, Como una cierva sedienta, etc.).

But since the early millennium, Pärt does seem to have churned out work after work with no real surprises, a pace apparently helped by the technique he developed of letting the text determine all rhythms and form (yet he doesn't get attacked as a cerebral serialist, go figure). For the composer, fulfilling a commission for a general public that wants a-new-cut-from-the-same-old-cloth must count as a success, and he no longer feels a need to explore new ground. But for this listener, it does mean that most new Pärt recordings are rather disappointing.

Cross posted from the WAYLT thread

Quote from: San Antone on January 03, 2018, 11:45:12 PM
Listening again to Part: Kanon Pokajanen

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/31dCUpbkUeL._SS500.jpg)

---

Amazon reviewer jt52 sums up why this recording is preferable to the recent one by Capella Amsterdam/Daniel Reuss:

Kaljuste
Rich sounding male voices
Takes its time, with very comfortably-paced pauses between the slow-moving phrases
Reverberant acoustic
This reverberance doesn't just make the sound more attractive, it makes the singing more musical, as the phrases taper off instead of ending abruptly
Recording isn't up to ECM's usual high standards but is pretty good

Reuss
More treble-heavy
De-emphasized bass
Recorded sound is slightly thinner, with less texture
A bit faster and more important than the overall tempo there is a more mechanical timing of pauses in between phrases
Dryer, less reverbrant overall sound

But what is truly a shame is that Ruess made significant cuts in the work in order to fit it onto a single CD.  He left out entirely odes 5 and 7, and made cuts in the ones he did include. 

I consider this work to be Part's masterpiece, and it has been recorded three times.  But the ECM, the first from 1998, is far and away the best.

Quote from: San Antone on January 03, 2018, 11:55:09 PM
I consider this work to be Part's masterpiece, and it has been recorded three times.  But the ECM, the first from 1998, is far and away the best.

This ECM Kanon Pokajanen is one of my desert island discs. I sampled parts of the 2 more recent versions a few weeks back, considering another entry (including some live extracts on youtube), I agree there's definitely a loss of impact compared to the ECM version. Some of that might also be due to a first recording bias as well, possibly.