Category: Music Classical

Arvo Pärt: Stabat Mater and other (mostly) vocal works

~ cpbaroque

Choral master Paul Hillier knows the music of Arvo Pärt as well as anyone, having been there for the composer’s early ECM recordings, written one of the few books on him and, lately, led a series of excellent Pärt surveys for Harmonia Mundi. Here, Hillier offers an intimate collection of vocal and instrumental chamber pieces that range across the Estonian’s career, anchored by the Stabat Mater of 1985 — a contemporary classic that stands with the greatest works devoted to the “grieving mother” from Josquin to Poulenc. This performance of the Stabat Mater is beautiful sung and ideally recorded. “My Heart Is in the Highlands” — a setting of the Robert Burns ballad for solo high voice and organ — is one of Pärt’s most perfect creations; sung here by soprano Else Torp (Hillier’s wife), it will crush a sensitive soul. Another standout is “Ein Wallfahrtslied” (A Pilgrim’s Song), which has a dark edge rare for latter-day Pärt; as a string quartet lays down a snaking, chromatic path, tenor and baritone intone the psalm like specters, lonely but ever-determined.

–- Bradley Bambarger, Listen Magazine

(Arvo Part)