Arvo Part - In Principio | ECM New Series 4766990

Arvo Part - In Principio

£13.25

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Label: ECM New Series

Cat No: 4766990

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Release Date: 9th March 2009

Contents

About

In recent years Arvo Pärt has written some significant works for larger forces mostly commissioned by major institutions for celebratory occasions. Most impressive is the dramatic 25-minute In Principio (2003) for mixed choir and symphony orchestra which sets to music the famous opening of St John’s gospel, “In principio erat Verbum”. In its five movements, “tintinnabuli” diatonicism is contrasted with sophisticated harmonic procedures, massive brass chords are juxtaposed with almost stoic calm in the choir. The purely orchestral La Sindone (The Holy Shroud), a highly expressive piece which mirrors the shroud’s symbolic shine-through effects in delicate string textures, was premièred in Turin at the 2006 Winter Olympics whereas Caecilia, vergine romana for mixed choir and orchestra was a commission for Rome’s jubilee in 2000. Da pacem Domine, one of Pärt’s most serenely beautiful pieces, responded in a very subtle way to the 2004 terror attacks in Madrid’s Atocha station. The piece, heard a cappella on the 2005 ECM release Lamentate, appears in an even more beautiful version for choir and strings. Two instrumental compositions complete the CD: the rhythmically energetic Mein Weg and Für Lennart in memoriam, a still piece in homage to late Estonian president Lennart Georg Meri.

The exemplary interpretations, displaying great clarity and sensitivity, by some of the best Pärt experts (among them noted conductor Tõnu Kaljuste, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir - which he directed from its foundation in 1981 until 2001 - and the country’s leading orchestra, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra) were recorded in Estonia with the assistance of the composer and will surely be one of the strongest 2009 releases on ECM.

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