Arvo Pärt Collection

Description

The most complete collection ever published of Arvo Pärt's music, offering a comprehensive overview of the work of one of the most singular voices in late 20th-century music. Tirelessly imitated, the language of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is immediately recognizable, speaking in a soft and soothing voice amid chaos and confusion. Born in 1935, Pärt reached his full compositional maturity in the late 1960s with a series of works that forcefully juxtapose modernist dissonances with islands of diatonic peace, often imbued with Christianity and denouncing Soviet authorities. At that time, the evolution of his style culminated in a piano piece of great simplicity, Für Alina, which holds the key to the next 25 years of his music. For this work, he developed a "tintinnabuli" technique where melodies gradually unfold around a central note, creating a sound world that is both timeless, original, and strikingly new. From this technique were born instant classics of a genre opposite to the smooth certainties of American minimalism: Fratres and its numerous arrangements (eight of which are presented here), the Cantus in homage to Britten, Tabula rasa for a Baroque ensemble of the concerto grosso type, and many others. Then, after emigrating to Germany, Pärt applied this technique to the Christian texts that had always been his source of inspiration and foundation: first the St. John Passion in 1982, followed by a set of vocal works such as the Magnificat, the Stabat Mater, and the Antiphon of Mary, which have become staples of the international choral repertoire. In the last twenty years, the harmonies of his music have expanded and achieved a Romantic expressive richness, even in sacred works like I am the true vine and The Woman with the Alabaster Box. Yet, Pärt's musical language retains a personal simplicity that makes it difficult to classify, while affirming beauty and deeply touching the souls of listeners.