Peter Dijkstra - Arvo Part: Te Deum; Berliner Messe; Wallfahrtslied; Dopo La Vittoria (2015)

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Peter Dijkstra - Arvo Part: Te Deum; Berliner Messe; Wallfahrtslied; Dopo La Vittoria (2015)

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As 80th-birthday presents go, this handsomely produced tribute to Arvo Pärt will take some surpassing. Recorded in 2012 and 2014, the programme’s centrepiece is a spellbinding account of the half-hour-long Te Deum, first heard in Cologne in 1985. Scored for three choirs, strings, prepared piano and a recording of a wind harp, this spacious music is full of alluring contrasts. The text is broken up by a series of short ritornellos and the use of a variety of choral textures. The clarity of Pärt’s counterpoint is clothed in an especially fine raiment, including those characteristically wispy vibrato-free violins against the dark resonance of the superb bass voices. By way of contrast, Wallfahrtslied (‘Pilgrims’ Song’), a sublime in memoriam for the Estonian film and theatre director Grigori Kromanov, is a sort of vocal Immovable Doh with the men floating on just one note as the strings shiver and yearn around them in a slow-motion chromatic haze.

The full, mixed choir returns for the Berlin Mass, in the 1992 version of five movements with string accompaniment. The Kyrie’s timeless quality sets the scene beautifully. Singers and players are perfectly balanced. Between the Gloria and Credo movements Peter Dijkstra interpolates the mini-cantata Dopo la vittoria, a commission by the City of Milan for the 1600th anniversary of St Ambrose’s death. The opening bars of the cantata and the Mass’s Gloria contain the only overtly fast and happy music on the disc. The final, soothing Agnus Dei ends with a calming vision of eternity. Simplicity is the keyword here.

Playing and singing are both beyond reproach, as is the glowing recorded sound in Munich’s Prinzregententheater and Herkulessaal.

Review by Malcolm Riley, Gramophone

With the death of British choral composer John Tavener in 2013, we are left with a single living composer of similar distinction: Arvo Pärt. Estonian by birth (b. 1935), Pärt emigrated from the Communist East with his wife and two sons, initially living in Vienna and eventually relocating to Berlin in 1981. After the fall of Communism, Pärt began to divide his time between Berlin and Tallinn (near his birthplace of Paide). Like Tavener, Pärt converted to Orthodox Christianity, a move reflected in his composition.

Pärt has provided settings for many traditionally sacred texts such as Passio Domini ("Passion of Our Lord"), Te Deum (from Te Deum Laudamus "Thee, O God We Praise"), Stabat mater (from Stabat mater dolorosa "The Sorrowful Mother Stood"), Magnificat ("My soul magnifies" Canticle of Mary), Miserere ("Lord Have Mercy") and the traditional Mass -Berliner Misse (Berlin Mass). The present offering by Peter Dijkstra and the Chor Des Bayerichen Rundfunks / Muchner Rundfunkorchestra, programs Pärt's settings of Te Deum and Berliner Messe with the secular Wallfahrtsleid (Pilgrim's Song) and Dopo la vittoria (After the Victory).

The sound drawn from the Chor Des Bayerichen Rundfunks by Dutch conductor Peter Dijkstra is sumptuous and powerful. Te Deum is grand and stately, melding the old of plainchant with the new of Pärt's own Tintinnabuli. Thematically manifold with shifting sonority, this Te Deum explodes with its simple message and method. The Mass is a simpler and more restive affair, quietly brimming with adoration and repose. The "Kyrie" shimmers with its undulating volume and tempi. The "Sanctus" is almost impressionistic in its stark simplicity.

Stark simplicity is the charm of Pärt's more recent compositions and Dijkstra guides Pärt's efforts into a concentrated beam of beautiful.

Review by C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz

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Peter Dijkstra - Arvo Part: Te Deum; Berliner Messe; Wallfahrtslied; Dopo La Vittoria (2015)

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Peter Dijkstra - Arvo Part: Te Deum; Berliner Messe; Wallfahrtslied; Dopo La Vittoria (2015)

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Peter Dijkstra - Arvo Part: Te Deum; Berliner Messe; Wallfahrtslied; Dopo La Vittoria (2015)

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