Arvo Pärt: Passio
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CD Details
Brand: Alfred PublishingEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2003-04-29
Music Label: Naxos
Product features:
- CD Recording
- Arvo PSrt
- Jesus Is Betrayed And Arrested In Gethsemane
- Jesus Is Interrogated By The High Priest And Denied By Peter
- Jesus Is Judged By Pilate And Reviled By The People
- Jesus Is Crucified At Golgotha
Music reviews of Arvo Pärt: Passio
Music Review: Calm but striking spirituality, not the best performance
Rating: 3 Stars
The Estonian composer Arvo Part has composed in several styles during his 40-year career, but the most popular is his "tintinnabuli" style of the 1970s and 1980s, when he chose to turn away from the avant-garde towards the simpler, bell-like sonorities of medieval Western music and plainsong. Because of the frugal nature of the music, as well as the religious titles of many of his works of this time, this style has been called by some "holy minimalism". One of his most ambitious works of this era is his PASSIO or, to use its full title, "Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem".
The PASSIO is a straightforward setting of the Latin (Vulgate) text of St John's Gospel. However, those expecting to hear a St John's Passion classical like Bach's or fresh and modern like Sofia Gubaidulina's will be surprised. Part has looked far into the past, further back than Bach, and produced a work reminiscent of Gregorian chant. This 60-minute work is sung uninterrupted (though Naxos has created a disc with four tracks), and the first thing that will strike the listener is its smooth and seemingly unchanging veneer. The six vocalists--Jesus, Pilate, and a quartet representing the Evangelist, sing with total sincerity but no urgency in order to let the listener form his own private relationship to his crucified Saviour out of the presented words. Each of the singers is accompanied by certain instruments, Jesus and Pilate by organ, while the Evangelist quartet by violin, cello, oboe, and bassoon.
I have been hard on Part's oeuvre during this period. Popular works like "Tabula Rasa" and "Cantus" are supposed to be "spiritual", but they communicate no clear religious orthodoxy and the listener hears whatever he wants to in it. I favour his works of the mid-to-late 1990s when he began to compose music deeply linked to his Russian Orthodox faith, a phase which culminated in his magisterial 1998 setting of the KANON POKAJANEN penitence text of St Andrew of Crete. However, PASSIO is a marvelous exception in his tintinnabuli phase. This is deeply Christian music, not easy to listen to but capable of focusing the believer on the core of his faith. I only wish that Part decided, as did Gubaidulina after her great, much greater than Part's, JOHANNES-PASSION, to set the Easter according to St John as well, it would be fascinating to hear Part's perspective on the other half of Christianity's foundation.
This performance on Naxos by the Tonus Peregrinus led by Antony Pitts is fairly good, but I do not think that it can be ranked as highly as the performance by the Hilliard Ensemble on ECM. One or two vocalists in the Evangelist quartet seem limpid, and the the instruments are call too much attention to themselves and detract from the Gospel presentation (either over-agressive playing or poor mixing). However, as with the ECM recording, the composer was consulted during the preparations, so we cannot assume that the result is too far off from what Part desires. So, this is not a bad recording, simply not the best. I have not yet heard the recording on Finlandia. The liner notes are relatively informative, though like all Naxos discs they are unappealingly typeset. There is a short biography of Part and description of his works, along with the Latin text of the PASSIO with English (apparently KJV) translation.
If you have not heard Part's music before, I would suggest the TABULA RASA or LITANY discs on ECM. With several works presented in each disc, there will give one a pretty good coverage of his compositional techniques. If you like what you have heard there, and are welcoming to deeply Christian music, PASSIO will probably not disappoint, but try the Hilliard Ensemble's performance first before buying this if you enjoy the work so much.
Description of Arvo Pärt: Passio
Naxos is proud to present a brand new recording of Arvo Pärt?s Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem, a major milestone in Naxos? recording legacy and only the third recording of the work to be released on compact disc.One of the most significant choral works of the late twentieth century, Pärt?s Passio has been described as "surely the bleakest, most ritualistic Passion to be composed since Heinrich Schutz?s settings of the mid seventeenth century" (Gramophone). Composed in 1982, it is one of the works in which Pärt uses "tintinnabulist" techniques ? the sound or music of bells. "I build with the most primitive materials ? with the triad. ? The three notes of a triad are like bells. And that is why I call it tintinnabulation". (Arvo Pärt)
This new recording by Oxford-based ensemble Tonus Peregrinus offers a radically different take on the music from existing recordings. When recording the work, the ensemble followed all Pärt?s score markings to the letter. After the recording session, the disc was sent to the composer who listened carefully and decided to clarify exactly what he had intended by the score markings; the present recording was then edited according to his new "rules". This is therefore the very first recording of the Passio to take account of the composer?s recent clarification of precise note and rest durations.
Composed in 1982 and later recorded by the Hilliard Ensemble on ECM, Arvo Pärt?s Passio (Passion According to St. John) made its composer famous, and rightly so. It is a work of unique beauty. Its meditative, intensely spiritual quality is static; the listener will find no outbursts or overtly dramatic moments to latch on to as one does in Bach's Passions. Here the story is told with a lack of overt emotionalism which quickly becomes hypnotic. Jesus is a bass, he is accompanied by an organ, all his words are intoned slowly, on lengthy note values. The role of the Evangelist is taken by four voices--a soprano, alto, tenor, and bass--and they are accompanied, on short note values and in different groupings (and frequently dissonantly), by one each of violin, cello, oboe, and bassoon. Pilate is a tenor. This new performance cuts 10 minutes off the 71-minute timing on the ECM recording; still, it can't be accused of treating the music lightly or with anything other than the respect and dignity it deserves. The final eight-word prayer, which ends in a beautiful, life-affirming D-major chord is taken, in fact, too slowly--the novice listener may presume one of the too-long pauses is the work's end. But aside from this miscalculation, this new performance is glorious, and at less than half the price of the ECM (or one on Elektra), should be in the collection of anyone interested in devotional music, beautiful music, and/or the phenomenon that is Arvo Pärt. Very highly recommended. --Robert Levine
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