![]() as I sit alone in my study, listening to this seminal recording once again. Nevertheless, its visceral power and openness to interpretation have yet to wane, for it has only grown with me. Of the significant body of Pärt’s works represented by ECM, this album came relatively late in my listening. One finds its power in every note, and through an allegiance so delicate it knows no other shelter than the human heart. Out of this nexus arose his signature “tintinnabuli” style, which finds its harmonic roots in the overtones of the struck bell. ![]() It is the silence of death, a reminder of our spiritual origins and of life’s fragility. According to biographer Paul Hillier, this silence has been the alpha and omega of his subsequent musical output. Disillusioned by the serialism with which his early works engaged, and which had earned him the red pen of Soviet censors, he fell into silence and personal reformation. ![]() ![]() He would later study with Heino Eller at Tallinn Conservatory, where he was characterized as one who “just seemed to shake his sleeves and notes would fall out.” The sixties found him at a critical juncture in his creative life. Paide Castle (photo by Liene Strautmane-Kaze)īorn in the small town of Paide, just outside of Tallinn, Pärt took his first musical steps at age seven and was already composing by his teens. Yet behind the iconicity, word-of-mouth marketing, and a few choice celebrity endorsements (not least among them, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe), Pärt’s music remains as it is: reverence in sonic form. When it first appeared in 1984, hardly anyone outside the composer’s native Estonia could have known what to expect from this modest cover of muted pastel and block lettering, but Tabula rasa has since taken on a life of its own. To celebrate this milestone, ECM has rereleased its first New Series album in a special deluxe edition. On 11 September 2010, Arvo Pärt welcomed his 75th year. –Arvo Pärt (photo courtesy of The Sonic Spread) What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises-and everything that is unimportant falls away.” “The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. Recorded October 1983, Basel January 1984, Stuttgart February 1984, Berlin November 1977, BonnĮngineers: Heinz Wildhagen, Peter Laenger, Eberhard Sengpiel, and Dieter Frobeen ![]() Tabula rasa was the first record in the series and also brought wider recognition to Arvo Pärt.The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra This experience became a trigger for creating the ECM New Series in 1984. Manfred Eicher, the head of the record label ECM, has recalled the first time he heard Tabula rasa: driving in a car, without knowing the name of the composer or the title of the piece. He has also admitted that this piece changed his life. Violinist Gidon Kremer has described Tabula rasa as a declaration of silence, a manifesto of concentrating on important things. This composition also became a turning point in Arvo Pärt’s career, introducing the expressive possibilities of the tintinnabuli style for the first time in a large-scale musical composition. The central work in Pärt’s instrumental music, the double concerto Tabula rasa has become one of the cult pieces in the music world and has prompted many composers and musicians, as well as concert audiences, to listen to and understand music in a completely new way. Arvo Pärt "Tabula Rasa, Collage, Symphony No 1, Pro et Contra" (2012) ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |