The notes to this convincing
programme indicate its direction in
giving an overview to the "expressive
opening-out and harmonic enrichment
of Pärt’s musical vocabulary"
around the time of the composition
of the St John Passion in 1982, up to
that point Pärt’s longest work.
Nothing therefore is new to his discography
but these highly accomplished performers
are clearly well versed in the idiom
and catch the essential Pärt with
imagination and technical security.
The chant like asceticism
of Cantate Domino Canticum Novum, a
setting of Psalm 95, is for four-part
chorus and organ – the latter instrument
having an important part to play in
terms of registral colour and Jurgen
Petrenko suitably aerates the textures
with considerable skill. The Berliner
Messe was originally written for four
solo voices and organ but is heard here
in the revised version for choir and
strings (it also exists for choir and
organ). A work that begins with reflective
intimacy in the Kyrie grows progressively
more external in the Gloria and, via
the added Alleluia Verses, reaches its
rhythmically most alert moments in the
Veni Sancte Spiritus. Pärt’s use
of a static pedal in the strings allows
for real motion above it and it’s the
work’s most diverting movement. The
Credo is better known as his Summa,
here recycled (Handel did it, I suppose,
why not Pärt) and the Agnus Dei
takes us back to reflection and stillness.
The basses cope well
with the famous De Profundis and the
original version of Summa, dating from
1977 shows the more spare and austere
primary inspiration, which was later
to be rather more boldly embroidered
in the Mass. His first English setting,
The Beatitudes, grows steadily to a
climax with a final nobly conceived
Amen; it seems more convincing a structure
than the 1989 Magnificat with which
the disc ends.
Fine notes and excellent,
committed performances. This disc has
been released in several formats and
this is the SACD multichannel Surround
Sound hybrid mastered in DSD but compatible
with CD players. I’ve not been able
to sample it in its more expansive medium
but it sounds warm and immediate on
a standard CD.
Jonathan Woolf
Jurgen Petrenko (organ) 
NAXOS
6.110052 