Arvo Pärt: Tabula Rasa (Remastered 2015) Gidon Kremer & Kremerata Baltica

• Arvo Pärt (1935)
• 1 Fratres (For Violin and Piano) 11:33
• 2 Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten 05:08
• 3 Fratres (For 12 Celli) 11:59
• 4 Tabula rasa - I. Ludus 09:36
• 5 Tabula rasa - II. Silentium 16:50
• Total Runtime 55:06

Info for Arvo Pärt: Tabula Rasa (Remastered 2015)

In celebration of Arvo Pärt's 80th birthday, ECM presents the remastered 'Tabula rasa' in 96 kHz. This recording launched the New Series in 1984, and the interpretations of Pärt's unique compositions by a cast including Gidon Kremer, Keith Jarrett, Dennis Russell Davies and Alfred Schnittke changed the landscape of contemporary music.

This epochal recording is being reissued together with a 200-page book that includes previously unpublished facsimile manuscripts in Pärt's hand, as well as study scores of 'Tabula rasa', 'Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten', and 'Fratres' in versions for violin/piano and 12 cellos - all the pieces that comprised the now-legendary Tabula rasa album. Additionally the book includes Wolfgang Sandner's original liner notes, a new introductory essay by Paul Griffiths, photos, discography and work list.

This highly attractive edition will be of intense interest to newcomers to Arvo Pärt as well as to those who loved this music the first time around. Moreover it will provide illumination for musicians and music students. It closely follows the release on ECM New Series of the world premiere recording of Pärt's Symphony No. 4.

„This seminal album now almost seems like the manifesto for a whole new strain of minimalism that has found an enormously receptive audience. It represented a breakthrough for Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, whose music--like that of his European colleagues John Tavener and Henryk Górecki--pursues an austerely beautiful simplicity that suggests spiritual illumination. Fratres, given here in two versions, one for piano and violin and the other for 12 cellos, repeatedly intones a sequence resembling chant to convey a sensibility that seems at once archaic and beyond time. Violinist Gidon Kremer, for whom Pärt wrote the exquisitely contemplative and hypnotic title work, grasps the music's koan-like idiom, allowing an inner fullness to resonate through the most fragile, ethereal wisps of tone against the mysterious clangings of prepared piano. The tolling of the tubular bells in Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Brittenis an emotionally charged lament, based on a simple minor descending scale, that introduces Pärt's fascination with what he calls 'tintinnabulation': the literal and metaphorical sound of ringing bells. This recording is also famous for the acoustically warm presence produced by ECM's Manfred Eicher, which magnificently captures the mystical simplicity of Pärt's sound world.“ (Thomas May)

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

Recorded October 1983, Basel; January 1984, Stuttgart; February 1984, Berlin; November 1977, Bonn
Engineered by Dieter Frobeen, Eberhard Sengpiel, Heinz Wildhagen, Peter Laenger
Produced by Manfred Eicher

Digitally remastered

No biography found.

Booklet for Arvo Pärt: Tabula Rasa (Remastered 2015)