Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel

Celebrating the serene mysticism of the music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, this 2CD collection brings together his best known works (such as the ever-popular Spiegel im Spiegel) , with lesser known masterpieces (such as the haunting Burns setting My Heart’s in the Highlands).

Largely drawn from the Decca and Deutsche Grammophon catalogues, this collection includes seven brand new recordings with Nigel Short conducting the award-winning Tenebrae in Cantate Domino and the English Chamber Orchestra in orchestral works including the famous Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten – an outstanding example of Pärt’s ‘tintinnabulation’ style.

This collection of recordings illuminates two different sides of violinist Tasmin Little’s accomplished playing. While the Brahms and Sibelius Concertos are a testament to her technical skill and breadth of expression, the Pärt works display a more pared-back approach, making full use of Little’s pure and resonant tone.

Lisa Batiashvili’s debut album for DG, ‘Echoes of Time’, is a matter of the heart - Lisa focuses her program on composers whose lives and work have been heavily influenced by the political happenings in former Soviet Union. Inspired by personal experience, Lisa, herself, went into German exile with her family during the political upheaval in Georgia in 1991.

The program spans the whole of the 20th century, classics by Shostakovich ‘Waltz from the Doll’s Dances’ and Rachmaninov’s ever popular ‘Vocalise’, are combined with Georgian composer, Giya Kancheli’s ‘V and V’, and Estonian, Arvo Pärt’s ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’. ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ was written shortly before the composer went into exile.

For Pärt’s ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ and Rachmaninov’s ‘Vocalise’ Lisa teams up with one of our DG’s most distinctive pianists, Hélène Grimaud. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Symphonie orchester des bayerischen.

Michael Collins, the virtuoso clarinettist and exclusive Chandos artist, returns for a second volume in Chandos’ series showcasing the extraordinarily wide range of music written for his instrument. The first volume, The Virtuoso Clarinet (CHAN10615), was described by International Record Review as: ‘…an absolute charmer, most beautifully played… difficult to imagine a finer performance than that given here.’

Accompanied by Michael McHale on the piano, Collins here explores the lyrical qualities of the clarinet in a programme comprising a widely varied repertoire. One of the prime qualities of the instrument is its likeness in tone and range to the human voice, which has inspired composers to write aria- and lyric song-like pieces for it.

Baermann’s Adagio in D flat perfectly illustrates the clarinet’s capacity for sustained lyric melody, taking on the character of an operatic aria, the clarinet’s soulful line interspersed with sudden bursts of bravura. Though once ascribed to Richard Wagner, the piece is now acknowledged as being by Baermann, widely recognised as one of the greatest clarinettists of his time.

Among the other key works on this release is Saint-Saëns’s four-movement Clarinet Sonata in E flat. A very late work, it is one of three woodwind sonatas composed shortly before the composer’s death in 1921. In this work too, the clarinet appears at its most lyrical, not least in the refined and songful opening theme; as quicker and more extrovert music takes centre stage, the movement exploits the full virtuoso potential of the clarinet.

The Clarinet Sonata of 1962, one of Poulenc’s very last works, was dedicated to the memory of Arthur Honegger, a fellow member of the ‘Groupe des Six’ in the 1920s, who had died in 1955. This accounts for the intense sense of sadness and loss in the first movements. However, the finale offers relief from the sombre mood, capturing a kaleidoscope of witty, agile, and highly rhythmic ideas right up to the dramatic conclusion.

These days Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is mainly associated with his later works. Born in 1935 he wrote ‘avant-garde’ works at first. In the nineteen seventies he increasingly found his inspiration in medieval religious music, both western and eastern European. This first transpired in his Für Alina for piano. It already has the telling low tempo and (two) layers.

Pärt further extended his so-called tintinnabuli (i.e. bells) style in small-scale pieces like the different versions of Spiegel im Spiegel and Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka. Although this last piece has ‘classical’ features as well.

This CD shows an aspect of Arvo Pärt which is seldomly heard: his small-scale chamber music works. As such this recording is a valuable addition to the material already available on the market.