Pärt: Alina
Product Details | Similar Products | Customer Reviews | Artist: Arvo Pärt List Price: £14.99 Our Price: £10.93 You Save: £4.06 (27%) Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours  |
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 | Product Details: Release Date: 25 October 1999 Record Label: ECM New Series Rating:  Sales Rank: 3446 | | Look for similar items by category:
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| | Customer Reviews: Resonates with the soul (23 June 2010)I suspect that the reason so many people find this simple music has a magical effect on them is that it perfectly resonates with that still centre of self that we barely recognise and to which we are reaching when we use the word "soul". Sitting with this music is transforming and healing, far more so than with Part's busy hermaphrodite choirs and the dripping religious stuff. This is where he really hits what he was looking for, well outside of Christianity and the medieval Church, in a timeless, sect-less, open, infinite space. Shame he didn't write much more like this but there's always Sibelius chamber music and Philip Glass and the Durutti Column. Sublime (23 February 2010)This wonderful recording ranked 2nd only to Keith Jarrett's The Koln Concert in a review of the ECM label in January's issue of Mojo. Tabula Rasa has already got under the skin, and I knew that I had to add this to the collection. Others have described this as sublime, serene and exquisite. They weren't exaggerating. Play with the lights down, no peripheral sounds, and let yourself drift... minimalist beauty (19 January 2009)I've listened to many of the Arvo Part CDs, and have to say I don't take to his orchestral and/or choral works .... they are too disjointed and not sufficiently flowing for my taste. Also, I don't tend to like music with a huge range of volume, from o to 11 on the volume scale, as I'm looking for something hypnotic from this type of minimalist "spiritual" music. But this CD is just perfect. It's ideal if you want to be transported into silence. Reminds me somewhat of Keith Jarrett at his sublime best, and also has some of the quality of Renaissance church music, such as Taverner, Tallis and Palestrina, but pared down to its absolute basics. It's beautiful simplicity at its best. Definitely worth buying.  The ground; the sky. (15 January 2009)The last CD I bought by Arvo Pärt was the recording of his Kanon Pokajanen (the Canon of Repentance), which is a very long piece of music concerned with transformation. The music is very static; for most of the record the same notes and phrases are used, unchanging, but in a few places the piece seems like it's about to suddenly change into something new, but then... doesn't. I think that the purpose of that music is to not itself change and dance before a stationary audience, as most music does, but the other way around. The music stays the same, but you change; or perhaps what you hear the music saying to you changes. I had this in mind when I was thinking about the unusual structure of this recording. As you may have read elsewhere, the programme is a recording of Spiegel im Spiegel for violin and piano; a long interpretative performance of Für Alina; Spiegel im Spiegel for violoncello and piano; Für Alina again; and finally Spiegel im Spiegel for violin and piano again. The last performance of the piece is a little faster than the first. The title of this review derives from how I feel about the pieces aesthetically; they seem like two sides of one coin. Spiegel im spiegel is a rock, always impassively beneath you, bearing you. It is often used in films (like Wit, and Gerry) as a backdrop to death, that great comforting, crushing certainty. Für Alina was written for a girl who was leaving home to go and study at university abroad, and is all about uncertainty, freedom and openness. Not wandering lost, exactly, but definitely going it alone. The performances on here by Alexander Malter are both about 5 times as long as the original score, and just further develop the theme. It's not unusual to say this about Pärt's music, but the beginning and ending of the pieces doesn't seem like an applicable concept - more that it is a place without beginning or end which you come into and out of. So what I am trying to say is that each of the two places you visit on this record complements and, moreover, strengthens the other. The plunging descent on the violin towards the end of the first Spiegel im Spiegel felt like cold, wet comfort; played on the violoncello in the middle track it felt like a hand reaching down to me from above, almost touching me, then pulling back. Should you buy this CD? It is a pretty unconventional recording, and there are plenty of more "straight" recordings of Arvo Pärt, notably Te Deum and Tabula Rasa (both on the ECM label) which are arguably better to hear first if you are a beginner. On the other hand this music is very accessible and, dare I say it, easy to listen to. Basically, if you liked what I wrote above, you will probably like this CD. R.M. Nice Pair Of Ditties (14 January 2009)Just the two. Well rounded & perfectly formed. No frilly bits. No padding. mmmmm.... Lovely. |
