Title : Tabula Rasa
Author : Part, Arvo
Release Date : 19991116
Binding : Audio CD
Regular Price : $17.98
Amazon.com Price : $14.98
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Editorial Reviews : 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.
Buyer Reviews : Arvo Part has become a marketing phenomenon in the last ten years or so and as such has become in a sense a victim of his own success. As more and more recording companies churn out endless reworkings of Fratres and Tabula Rasa, it can be hard to remember the stunning impact that this music had when it first came out. To me, this CD shows Part at his most fresh, in performances that have yet to be matched.
The two versions of Fratres are really completely different pieces using the same harmonic progressions. In the violin and piano duet, the chord progression is used for a series of variations that range from the mystical to the passionate. Keith Jarrett and Gidon Kramer play this music magnificently. The version of Fratres for 12 solo celli is marvelous. The work is based on a simple modal chord progression which gradually builds to a crescendo and then fades away to nothing. Each interation of the chord progression is separated by an almost inaudible drone, as if silence were resounding.
The Cantus is the first of Part's canonic style. Simple material (a desending minor scale) is unfolded in various tempi, creating the feeling of bells. The work is beautiful, but doesn't grab me as much as other Part pieces. For my ear, it can seem a little contrived.
The standout on the album is Tabula Rasa, a double concerto for two violins and chamber orchestra, including prepared piano. The first movement alternates fast paced arpeggiated material with bell like sounds on the prepared piano. The effect is one of gradually building tension, relieved by the disapation of energy in the points of stillness. The second movement is a long, slow movement based on rising and falling scales in the violins, and the gradual thinning out of texture. The movement is deeply moving. Though the musical means are simple, I find myself disappointed when the pieces ends. It is like a vision of eternity.
If you don't know Part, this is the album to begin with. Some of his other marvelous pieces may be just a bit too long for the average listener. (I love the St. John Passion, but wouldn't suggest that to anyone who didn't already love Part.) And the ECM sound quality is not to be matched.
