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| Tabula Rasa | 
 enlarge | Artists: Dennis Russell Davies, Keith Jarrett, Gidon Kremer, Stuttgart State Orchestra, Tatiana Grindenko, Alfred Schnittke, Twelve Cellists Of The Berlin Philharmonic
Creators: Arvo Part, Dennis Russell Davies, Saulius Sondeckis, 12 Cellists Of The Berlin Philharmonic, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Staatsorchester Stuttgart, Keith Jarrett, Gidon Kremer, Tatjana Grindenko
Label: Ecm Records
Category: Music
List Price: $17.98
Buy New: $11.27
You Save: $6.71 (37%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $7.30
Avg. Customer Rating:  (19 reviews)
Sales Rank: 6913
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.7 x 0.4
MPN: 817764
UPC: 042281776427
EAN: 0042281776427
ASIN: B0000262K7
Release Date: November 16, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Modern classical music that is beautiful October 23, 2005
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
Too many modern classical composers have sacrificed beauty for virtuosity and expermintality. Not so Part. This Baltic composer writes melodic music of outstanding lyricism and profound beauty. He has succesfully managed to write in the classical format while not sounding like a repetition of the great artists of yore. The music is melancolic, but not tragic, pensive but not unpenetratable. I had the great honour to listen to a live perfomance of works by Part by the Hilliard Ensamble at the Royal Festival Hall in London, UK. It was one of the few times I know of that the audience gave a standing ovation, and just did not want to stop. Mr Part was present and he almost started crying.
Part has contributed music to films as diverse as Les Amants du Pont-Neuf and Fahrenheit 9/11.
A spiritual experience August 11, 2005
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
In the CD's booklet, Part is quoted as having a discussion with a monk, one of the "fratres" of the twin pieces on this CD, in which he tells the monk that, as his contribution to the world, he writes prayers and sets psalms to music. The monk tells him, "No, you are wrong. All the prayers have already been written. Now you have to prepare yourself."
After "Credo" in 1968 - which his Soviet masters banned - Part descended into a period of silence, but arose, newly-prepared, in 1976 with "Fur Alina" and the pieces that make up this CD. Now he had hit upon a new style, the "little bells" sound which he calls "tintinnabulation".
I do not know what drew Part to this minimalist and religious sound, but I can picture a grievously wounded mankind crawling out from the wars of the first half of the 20th century, enchained in the moral and substantial poverty of totalitarianism in Part's homeland, a Baltic former "captive nation". What music befits this humanity, who cannot dance, can barely move - with luck, can take a few tiny, quiet steps toward hope? This is the music. However, the Christian Part does not believe that we must all suffer to be redeemed. He says that "the Apostles [could] have lived in the Soviet Union... But it is not absolutely necessary for people to live under such conditions. Perhaps it is more important for something to happen within us." He took the monk's advice to heart.
Thus "Alina", and also this "Tabula Rasa" collection: something happened within Arvo Part, and, through the medium of the extraordinary musicians here, an echo of that reaches the listener. This is first of all spiritual music.
Gidon Kremer, Part's fellow Balt and an incredible player, has a visceral grasp of Part's work - in fact, Part says that Kremer suggested the form of Tabula Rasa to him. To have Kremer share one version of "Fratres" with Keith Jarrett on piano is ... well, not to be missed. Jarrett is a musician whose own feeling comes across in his playing, as Part's comes through his composing. Putting Jarrett to work on this CD is an example of ECM's interest in the creativity they can breed by mixing their artists.
What music should sound like. March 15, 2005
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This recording has tremendous presence. Kremer's screeching harmonic tones and pizzicato are fresh, raw and beautiful - and together with Jarrett's majestic-texturing of keys, Part's Tabula Rasa soars to euphoric heights - and plummets to exquisite melancholic depths. Other highly skilled and competent musicians have performed this piece, but not with the depth achieved in this recording by Kremer and Jarrett. In my opinion, this is what music should sound like.
 Highly entertaining but spiritually dead music October 27, 2004
8 out of 26 found this review helpful
This disc contains four pieces by Estonian composer Arvo Part written in his most publically accessible style of the late 1970's and early 1980's, when he had rejected serial norms in preference to medieval and Renaissance norms and minimalism. These are perhaps his most well-known works, and an ideal starting point for exploring the composer's output.
"Fratres" is a piece with numerous--at least 8--variant arrangements. On this disc it is represented first in a 1980 version for violin and piano, played by Gidon Kremer and Keith Jarrett. I feel this is the more listenable arrangement. However, the following arrangement for 12 cellists, here from the Berlin Philharmonic, is said to be closer to Part's original intentions, for the open fifth A-E is sustained through the entire piece, and an independent violin prelude common to other arrangements is absent. The work has a six-measure theme which is repeated eight times (nine in the original), each coming a minor or major third lower.
"Cantus (in memoriam Benjamin Britten)" is Part's contribution to the memory of the British composer and conductor who died before his time. It is not merely a piece of mourning, but also a piece of self-blame, as Part says that a measure of guilt went into it. While the strings repeat the same general theme again and again, the sound is broken by a bell. Dennis Russel Davies here leads the Staatsorchester Stuttgart in an unobjectionable performance.
"Tabula Rasa" (1977) is probably the most instantly likeable piece on this disc. It is divided into two parts, and the first, "Ludus" is an intricate dance marked as to be performed "with movement", the two violins repeat the same theme over and over while true development is handled under the surface by a string orchestra. It is followed by "Silentium" ("Silence"), the meditative flip-side to be performed with as little movement as possible. This performance here might be seen as definitive, done as it is by friends of Part and Soviet music luminaries Gidon Kremer and Tatjana Grindenko (violin) and Alfred Schnittke (prepared piano) with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Saulus Sondeckis.
The sound quality of the four disparate performances is generally excellent, in spite of this being an AAD recording. "Tabula Rasa" is slightly marred by more background noise than is usual, but the fine quality of the performance easily takes one's mind off of that. I regret, however, that the disc is so short, a fault found in all of ECM's issues of Part's music. With a total running time of 55 minutes, there is abundant space for one more of the composer's works.
Part is generally seen as a religious composer--most of his output is religiously titled--and the liner notes here make much of the supposed deep sprituality of his work. However, I have always felt that music which so fuzzily nebulously speaks of religion has little efficacy. I prefer the work of Sofia Gubaidulina or Oliver Messiaen, whose music always asserts a clear, specific theology and doesn't let the listener hear whatever he wants to in it. This is one reason while I cannot rate the disc so highly as others, for in spite of its technical brilliance, this work is spiritually dead. However, in the mid-1990's Part began to compose works like "Litany" soundly based on his Eastern Orthodox faith, and this style ultimately culminated with his setting of the massive Kanon Pokajanen penitence text. I would recommend those to fans of Christian work in modern-classical music.
If you are interested in the work of Arvo Part, this is a good place to start, if only to understand what most people are talking about when they mention Part. While religiously hollow and in a style perhaps historically superseded, it nonetheless displays a fine veneer and is entertainingly listening.
Pretty decent for Minimalism June 4, 2004
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I have had this CD for more years than I can count, and I used to listen to it regularly with great enthusiasm. Now I listen to it 2 or 3 times a year, perhaps. Paert's music tends not to annoy me like that of so many other Minimalists, but these days I can only take him in small doses.Truly the highlight of this CD is the 12-cello arrangement of Fratres, which in many ways has been Paert's bread and butter. Certainly it is this piece that I have heard more frequently than any other Paert composition, and when is all said and done, he is far more likely to be remembered for this than any of his earlier Serialist works. First time listeners will no doubt be deeply moved & mesmerized by the repetitive, dark chord progressions. Indeed, even after all these years, it still moves me, but I need to keep my Paert dosage small. For those who don't love Minimalism, Paert (along with John Adams & Michael Torke) may be the most listenable of the Minimalist composers you will be likely to find, and this album certainly represents Paert's work at its best.
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