Arvo Pärt is the world’s most often heard classical composer; he trades that position numerically with John Williams, but does not, as Williams does, exist on the border between classical and another genre. His 90th birthday in 2025 has stimulated the release of some interesting albums, and this one made classical best-seller lists in the late summer of that year. One might not associate the percussive piano with the delicate shades of Pärt’s minimalist ensemble music, but pianist Georijs Osokins here (or the good marketing folks at Deutsche Grammophon) asserts that he wants to explore “the hidden relations between different pieces in Pärt’s piano output.” Thus, along with Pärt’s actual compositions for piano, from the early part of his career, he plays transcriptions…
Tag Archive: Arvo Pärt
Estonian vocal ensemble Vox Clamantis and their leader Jaan-Eik Tulve have established themselves among the leading interpreters of Arvo Pärt’s music over a quarter-century of close collaboration with the composer – a relationship that builds on the almost half a century long artistic partnership between Pärt and producer Manfred Eicher. Of the ensemble’s ECM New Series recording The Deer’s Cry, the BBC Music Magazine wrote that “the level of artistry necessary to achieve the kind of living, breathing performance given here by Vox Clamantis is a rarity … This grippingly authentic and superbly sung collection may now be the finest single-disc introduction to Pärt’s music.”
And I heard a voice, recorded in Haapsalu Cathedral, Estonia, and released as Arvo Pärt…
Arvo Pärt is perhaps the most frequently performed contemporary composer, and part of the reason for that is the flexibility of his music. Not only do his works stand up to his own rearrangements into various forms, but his music holds up when performed by many kinds of singers and instrumentalists, even by amateur choirs, although it requires a certain technical tautness. Thus, with a performance by the historically oriented Concerto Copenhagen, one might object that Pärt was not a Baroque composer, but what is done on this performance by conductor Tõnu Kaljuste and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir does not break any boundaries. The Concerto Copenhagen strings avoid vibrato and have clear attacks that stand up to the vast atmosphere…
If you’ve heard Arvo Pärt, you’ve probably heard Tabula Rasa. The best-known recording of the 1977 concerto, performed by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra (with Alfted Schnittke on prepared piano), was released by ECM way back in 1984, and helped bring Pärt’s holy minimalism to a new audience, firmly establishing his status as a living legend. This unreleased 20+ minute long-form version of Silentium, the second movement of Tabula Rasa makes perfect sense. Rendered at almost half the speed of the ECM version by Boston’s Grammy-nominated A Far Cry chamber orchestra, it sounds even more intensely celestial, giving us all the time we need to dwell on each mournful, beautiful note.
‘Fratres’, which was included on ECM’s…