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More than any other composer alive today Arvo Pärt has given us back the idea of eloquent beautiful simplicity. Granted, he can take his asceticism too far – sometimes numinous purity shades over into mere plainness. But with the exception of the creakily formulaic setting of My Hearts in the Highlands, that’s not the case with any of the works recorded here. Again and again there’s a sense of...
I had never been to Venice before this summer, and the relentless beauty of the place overwhelmed me. This new CD, too, is relentlessly beautiful: just as one palazzo follows another on the Grand Canal, so here one polished gem succeeds another in performances of an intensity that raises the hair on the nape of the neck. I haven't heard a choral recording to beat it in years.
Stephen Layton and...
This collection, a sequel to Polyphony’s all-Pärt CD for Hyperion, brings together choral music composed from 1996 to 2002. The period marked a widening of the range of languages Pärt set, and also a warming of his tonal colouring, compared with the cooler, sparer sound-world of his classic Latin settings, such as the St John Passion.
Several of the works were British ecclesiastical commissions...
I anticipate a considerable success for this disc. It brings together eight quite recent works by Pärt, and in doing so calls attention to the considerable variety to be found in them, to which Meurig Bowen’s informed notes provide an excellent guide. Dopo la vittoria brings the first surprise: it’s a setting of a text in Italian (though admittedly, translated from the Russian of the Dictionary...
Triodion is the longest of eight works on this disc, and comprises three odes leading to a simple coda. Everything is pared down to the minimum here and the music always seems to have time to linger. Only the most pure and precise of choral groups can raise Arvo Part’s work to its optimum level of expression. Polyphony and its conductor Stephen Layton make ideal interpreters. This their second...
This is John Tavener's magnum opus. At seven hours' duration, lasting from dusk to dawn, The Veil of the Temple is one of the longest continuous choral pieces ever written. Around 150 performers take part in a score requiring duduk, Tibetan horn, simantron and Indian harmonium, as well as soprano soloist, choir and organ, a supply of candles and copious amounts of incense. Embracing diverse...