- Audio CD (Dec 14 1999)
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: Universal Music Group
- ASIN: B0000262K7
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #29,205 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Product Details |
Track Listings
| 1. Fratres |
| 2. Cantus In Memory Of Benjamin Britten |
| 3. Fratres |
| 4. Tabula Rasa |
Product Description
From Amazon.co.uk
DG's beautifully packaged and produced 20/21 series here pays homage to Arvo Pürt, presenting a new interpretation of two of his most familiar works--already indisputable classics--Tabula Rasa and Fratres. For all of their "minimalist" technique, there's a fathomless--call it timeless, if you will--beauty to these scores the deeper you plunge into their hypnotic sound world. The best place to discover them remains ECM's breakthrough release Tabula Rasa. Unlike Gidon Kremer (the superb interpreter of that recording), and despite an epiphany he mentions in the booklet--likening this music to the desert landscape of Utah--Gil Shaham doesn't seem to grasp one of the key components of that beauty: its austerity, its distance, as through a glass. There's an exquisite finish to his tone, to be sure, but Shaham essentially over-romanticises this music, coating it with a lovely but undifferentiated sheen, although he does hint at the vocal character of his lines. Passages of Fratres thus sound curiously tamed, as if we could be listening to such pastoral blandishments as The Lark Ascending or, in Tabula Rasa, to a Vivaldi andante. Despite this disappointment, the disc offers a thoroughly compelling account of the Third Symphony (1971) by its dedicatee, Neeme Järvi. It's fascinating to hear Pärt's points of origin--Soviet music, chant from the Orthodox Church, the fascination with bell sounds--so clearly delineated and transmogrified as in this work. Järvi molds its colourful but sombre scoring into vividly dramatic shapes, hinting at Shostakovich in the chasm-deep bass lines tugging against the piercing treble or--as in the haunting opening solo--at the bleak majesty of a Sibelius landscape. The very success of Pärt's better-known works has tended to obscure the quality of such earlier pieces, but this performance helps widen the perspective to a more inclusive one. --Thomas May
Amazon.com essential recording
This seminal disc now almost seems like the manifesto for a whole new strain of minimalism that has found an enormously receptive audience. It represented a breakthrough for Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, whose music--like that of his European colleagues John Tavener and Henryk Górecki--pursues an austerely beautiful simplicity that suggests spiritual illumination. Fratres, given here in two versions, one for piano and violin and the other for 12 cellos, repeatedly intones a sequence resembling chant to convey a sensibility that seems at once archaic and beyond time. Violinist Gidon Kremer, for whom Pärt wrote the exquisitely contemplative and hypnotic title work, grasps the music's koan-like idiom, allowing an inner fullness to resonate through the most fragile, ethereal wisps of tone against the mysterious clangings of prepared piano. The tolling of the tubular bells in Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten is an emotionally charged lament, based on a simple minor descending scale, that introduces Pärt's fascination with what he calls "tintinnabulation": the literal and metaphorical sound of ringing bells. This recording is also famous for the acoustically warm presence produced by ECM's Manfred Eicher, which magnificently captures the mystical simplicity of Pärt's sound world. --Thomas May
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty decent for Minimalism,
By chefdevergue (Spokane, WA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Tabula Rasa (Audio CD)
I have had this CD for more years than I can count, and I used to listen to it regularly with great enthusiasm. Now I listen to it 2 or 3 times a year, perhaps. Pärt's music tends not to annoy me like that of so many other Minimalists, but these days I can only take him in small doses.Truly the highlight of this CD is the 12-cello arrangement of Fratres, which in many ways has been Pärt's bread and butter. Certainly it is this piece that I have heard more frequently than any other Pärt composition, and when is all said and done, he is far more likely to be remembered for this than any of his earlier Serialist works. First time listeners will no doubt be deeply moved & mesmerized by the repetitive, dark chord progressions. Indeed, even after all these years, it still moves me, but I need to keep my Pärt dosage small. For those who don't love Minimalism, Pärt (along with John Adams & Michael Torke) may be the most listenable of the Minimalist composers you will be likely to find, and this album certainly represents Pärt's work at its best.
5.0 out of 5 stars
1st Part of an Arvo,
By
This review is from: Tabula Rasa (Audio CD)
This was my 1st Arvo Part experience, who is an Eastern Orthodox Christian composer from Estonia. Starting out as a Serialist, he developed his own brand of Classical Minimalism with references to Christian Mysticism with a profound loneness & Awe. The main high-light is the last piece "Tabula Rasa" (Empty Slate) set to a prepared piano, which was 1st experimented by John Cage during the 1940's, only this prepared piano sounds more like a harp. In the last section of this piece, the prepared piano sets the main pitch, then the violins add a note up & then down, then add 2 notes up & then down, then 3...adding layers & layers with one of the saddest yet beautiful melodies ever heard. When it was 1st played the musicians wondered how something so simple & empty could sound so profound? One problem is that last piece was recorded during a radio broadcast, therefore background noises can be heard from time to time (coughing, moving feet, etc...). This doesn't take away from the whole CD which is wonderful recorded via the studio. If you want to question your existence; sit down in a dark room with a good glass of wine & give this CD a listen.
5.0 out of 5 stars
That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know...,
By A Customer
This review is from: Tabula Rasa (Audio CD)
First, there is the music. It pushes many an envelope, from its triad-obsessed yet deeply persuasive harmonic language, to its raw but ravishing tone colors. From the standpoint of composition, the magnitude of what is novel should in no way diminish what is known. All these works, most overtly the Cantus, testify to Part's daunting mastery of counterpoint. Back out all the jargon, and one is left to describe the effect of this music in abstract but more flattering terms. Here is sound that seems not only to transcend time and place, but beckons us to follow wherever it leads--even at the risk of never returning. Fortunately, this ECM release leaves the business of animating these creations to the pros. Kremer, Jarrett, Schnittke, Davies, and Sondeckis are all well-known risk-takers, many of whom play large in the debut of much of Part's output. The performances are beautiful, as much for their adept emotional expression as their convincing technique. In subsequent years, many worthy artists have undertaken performances of these works, but the majority of them attempt to apply the salve before they inflict the wounds. Not so here. This recording of Tabula Rasa, despite bearing the scars of the inevitable tics, pops, and coughs that live recordings are heir to, remains unsurpassed.
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