Arvo Pärt has become one of the most renowned and frequently performed
composers of our time, and while he had been working for many years
beforehand – essentially behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ in Soviet occupied
Estonia, it was the introduction of his
Tabula Rasa to a wider
public through Manfred Eicher, whose ECM New Series was launched in 1984 as
a platform for Pärt’s music. Since then the composer and producer have
maintained a creative partnership that has lasted for more than thirty
years.
The ECM label can proudly lay claim to première recordings of all of
Pärt’s major works, and to celebrate Pärt’s 80
th birthday in 2015
Eicher has drawn on the rich archive of their shared musical journey,
setting his selection of pieces in a dramaturgical sequence that invites us
to hear this music with fresh ears. Almost all of the works here are from
original ECM première releases, with the addition of a previously unreleased
version of
Most Holy Mother of God.
Much has changed in the world of music since 1984 – not so much in terms
of notes on the page, but in the way we interact with music as the stuff of
life. In essence, there are no longer any real secrets. When
Tabula
Rasa hit the airways a new realm was opened, and the world found it had
been hungry for this new discovery and the wealth of creativity surrounding
it.
Musica Selecta as a sampler is today something of an
anachronism. Almost all of us can access a great deal of music just by
searching online, so if you want to find out about Pärt’s music and whether
it’s something which will appeal to you, there’s no real need to invest in
what is after all a nicely packaged sequence of re-releases. Real fans of
Pärt are already likely to have most of the original recordings in one form
or another, so where does this leave us?
To start with, even though much of this music has now been recorded -
often superbly - by others via different labels, there is something special
about these ECM versions that cannot be reproduced. That premiere of the
actual piece
Tabula Rasa, not included in this collection, was a
live recording and by no means perfect in every regard. The atmosphere
around that performance is however unique, and for those of us who
discovered the work through that original ECM release there have been few
that come even close to providing that jaw-dropping experience. There is an
authenticity and devotional quality to the performances recorded by ECM
which suits Pärt’s work perfectly. The musicians sought to make these
recordings are often native Estonian, or friends and colleagues of the
composer, and the conductor Tõnu Kaljuste is just one of a number of key
figures that have brought Pärt’s work to life as few others have been able.
In other words, yes, you can find these pieces recorded elsewhere, but they
just don’t come better this. Add to this that the ECM label has not joined
in with the mad rush to have titles available through commercial online
streaming services, and this compilation begins to look increasingly
attractive even if you just want to explore Pärt yourself for a the first
time, or introduce him to a friend.
We all have our favourites, and you may find yourself missing some here.
Spectacular classics such as
Arbos don’t really suite the
atmosphere. Larger scale and indivisible works such as the remarkable
Litany and award-winning
Adam’s Lament are clearly absent
for reasons of space and proportion, but the extracts from
Kanon
Pokajanen and
Lamentate are well chosen. You can’t have
everything, but what you can have is a new total immersion in Arvo Pärt’s
world, curated and brought together by the person who knows them better than
anyone else on the planet, producer Manfred Eicher. This is the way to
experience
Musica Selecta. I had been dipping in and revisiting
familiar recordings and wondering how to approach this release, but on
actually starting to write this review soon came to realise that the best,
if not the only way to experience
Musica Selecta is to put on your
headphones, lean back, close your eyes, and let yourself be carried away on
the wavelength of a profoundly sublime 19 track radio station.
Moving between pieces on these discs is like moving between the chambers
of a vast cathedral or monastery. Here, there are chamber musicians or a
soloist making time still with the most sparing of musical means. There is
an orchestra, expanding space and time with the richness of their
sonorities, and around the corner a choir in deepest contemplation of the
spiritual. You have to take the time to allow all of this to have its
effect. There is no point in channel-hopping, and the impact of the greatest
moments will only have their full weight if you’ve put your trust in the
programme and allowed Mr Eicher to guide you. There is a good reason for
having, for instance,
Silouans Song at the heart of CD 1. With
everything that is going on around us I would defy anyone not to be moved
most deeply by this work, as it stands, and heard in context with the works
that have gone before. This is the point of
Musica Selecta, and one
of the main reasons for commending it even to those whose Pärt collections
are an embarrassment of riches. If, by the time you have experienced it all,
to that incredible monument in music
Da Pacem Domine and beyond, if
by then you don’t consider your life changed in any way whatsoever, then
alas …
Dominy Clements
