Track Listing

1. Fratres
2. Cantus In Memory Of Benjamin Britten
3. Fratres
4. Tabula Rasa

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5385 in Music
• Released on: 1988-07-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 55 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
This package presents two of Arvo Pürt's most familiar works--already indisputable classics--Tabula Rasa and Fratres. For all of their "minimalist" technique, there's a fathomless--call it timeless, if you will--beauty to these scores the deeper you plunge into their hypnotic sound world. The best place to discover them remains ECM's breakthrough release Tabula Rasa. Unlike Gidon Kremer (the superb interpreter of that recording), and despite an epiphany he mentions in the booklet--likening this music to the desert landscape of Utah--Gil Shaham doesn't seem to grasp one of the key components of that beauty: its austerity, its distance, as through a glass. There's an exquisite finish to his tone, to be sure, but Shaham essentially over-romanticises this music, coating it with a lovely but undifferentiated sheen, although he does hint at the vocal character of his lines. Passages of Fratres thus sound curiously tamed, as if we could be listening to such pastoral blandishments as The Lark Ascending or, in Tabula Rasa, to a Vivaldi andante. Despite this disappointment, the disc offers a thoroughly compelling account of the Third Symphony (1971) by its dedicatee, Neeme Järvi. It's fascinating to hear Pärt's points of origin--Soviet music, chant from the Orthodox Church, the fascination with bell sounds--so clearly delineated and transmogrified as in this work. Järvi molds its colourful but sombre scoring into vividly dramatic shapes, hinting at Shostakovich in the chasm-deep bass lines tugging against the piercing treble or--as in the haunting opening solo--at the bleak majesty of a Sibelius landscape. The very success of Pärt's better-known works has tended to obscure the quality of such earlier pieces, but this performance helps widen the perspective to a more inclusive one. --Thomas May

Album Description
Recorded 1977, 1983 and 1984

Personnel:
Gidon Kremer - (violin), Keith Jarrett - (piano), Dennis Russell Davies
conductor Staatsorchester Stuttgart, The 12 Cellists of the Berlin
Philharmonic Orchestra, Tatjana Grindenko - (violin), Alfred Schnittke -
(prepared piano),
Saulius Sondeckis conductor of Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra

Customer Reviews

possibly the most beautiful piece of music ever...........
Arvo Part's "Tabula Rasa" is an absolutely astonishing piece of music. It is part prayer, a part meditation and a part love letter, burning with passion and sufferring. It is at the same time filled with yearning and longing for a higher state of being and every listening puts my mind in a very unique, spiritual and meditative state. I can't recommend this CD more, for the perfromances on it are all absolutely astounding, especially the live recording of the title track, with its sounds of the audience and the resonances from the hall where it was recorded. Its like a piece of music made in heaven and completely transcends our normal mundane experiences........

Take the Arvo Part test!!! NOW!!!
I dont even know if there is any point in writing reviews about Arvo Part at all. Even the pieces which you dont like as much as the ones you love, have a perfection to them, and such a compositional purity of thought, that they become equally as irresistable; demanding that you always play every track on the cd.

And yes, the pieces are unbelievably beautiful...

And yes, the performances are magical...

And yes, the recording is perfect.

I would like to see a review from someone who doesn't fall in love with this music for a change. Does anyone ever hate it? Or even think that it is just alright?

Not saying that i would like there to be of course... but so far his music is proving to be truely perfect for all human brains.

There are six people in my family...

My brother is a DJ and blasts nothing but garage music from his room. UNTIL NOW!!! I had to make a recording of this CD so he can CHILL after work with his girlfriend. Yesterday he asked me to make a tape of more music i think he might like.

This is also the only CD that my parents allow me to play in their office.

My sister who likes pubs,clubbing and ***... has just ordered herself a copy for uni.

My other brother has resisted the temtation so far, but when its on and he's in the room i can see him itch.

My dog is indifferent.

I think.

Simle, pure excellency
I have been the fortunate owner of the ECM recording of Tabula Rasa for nine years, and this record is perhaps the most treasured CD of an extensive collection. This was my first Part record, and opened my ears to his music. I may not be the right one to talk about the technicality of the performers. But this is music that will get under your skin with its simpleness, its timeless sound and purity. It did so with me, and almost everyone else I know who have taken the time to listen to it, has come to adore the music of this Estonian composer. Though Part has himself said that he prefer the human voice to any other instrument, he is in my opinion one of the most excellent contemporary composers to conjure up instrumental works. His own special sound may remind of the music of times past and forgotten, but this is modern music indeed. The secret to this, may be in the purity of his instrumental arrangements, where nothing is superfluous. This special sound has a wide span; modest and intrusive, melancholic and playful at the same time. If I could add an extra star to the rating, I would. Words are poor in describing Part's music. This is a record I never tire of, as well of the other recordings I have of his works. I do not feel particularly comfortable about giving such praise, but in this case, there is no way around. This is excellency.