Pärt: Miserere/Festina lente/Sarah was Ninety Years Old

Festina Lente is one of his best short orchestral pieces, and compares favourably to the most well-known piece of this type, Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten.

Sarah Was Ninety Years Old is a radical reworking of the 1976 piece Modus. I've heard the original (never officially released) and I can happily report that this 1990 reworking is vastly superior. Like Miserere, this is both peaceful and - when the organ comes in at the end - awesome.

All in all, one of the best Arvo CDs out there.


Into the abyss   August 24, 2004
 10 out of 10 found this review helpful

If you're a fan of Part's work and haven't heard this album, buy it. You simply can't claim to have experienced what his music has to offer without having heard what is a truly unique listening experience. Immediate comparisons are the other ECM choral albums - Arbos, Passio and Te Deum. But this release takes Part's bleak, desolate vision to its ultimate extreme.

The title track is without doubt the main feature of the album. The Hilliard Ensemble have never been better placed and the piece simply wouldn't be the same without them. Their usual medieval monk sound seems to take on a whole new character that at times hardly seems human. The atmosphere is icy, almost other-wordly. But the larger mixed choir and warm instrumental textures give the work a lighter edge. The performance of Festina Lente, a short and beautiful instrumental, was, like the other 2 pieces, conducted in the composer's presence and no better example of it can be found. Sarah Was Ninety Years Old is Part at his most minimalist, and arguably most terrifying. Over twenty minutes of an echoing, beating drum intersected with swaying desolate voices may challenge your view of his work as never before. But stick with it, take it as a whole and be open-minded and you'll see how perfectly it finishes what is an excellent album.

This is contemporary classical choral music unlike any other. It's dark stuff, but if you know how to appreciate it, you'll see how it carries with it a positive side that makes suffering and pain seem transient and the spirit eternal. Part's been compared to John Tavener and Henryk Gorecki, and all three have been labelled holy minamalists. But his two contemporaries tread much safer ground and don't carry with them the same uniqueness that this album epitomises. Arvo Part is truly a one-off, the likes of which the music world may never see again.

A word of warning to those unfamiliar with Arvo Part's music. This is not the most accessible collection of his works and there are many other releases that would serve as better introductions to this unique composer. Those on German label ECM New Series tend to be the best, from which I'd recommend either Arbos or Te Deum. The more recent Orient Occident album represents some of his more recent and lighter work.


The Beauty of Absence   June 8, 2003
 5 out of 12 found this review helpful

Despite Part's most recent work 'Orient and Occident' or indeed his 'LamenTate' scored for Anish Kapoor's remarkable sculpture at the Tate Modern, Miserere still exists as a celestial and cavernous masterpiece, overshadowing or rather still evidently commanding his present work.
Scored for an extraneous cacophony of the finest soloists (the favourites from the Hilliard Ensemble), chorus and orchestra, the dimension of sound created within the stases of extreme texture-both restrained and humble against the declarative and mighty his effect is extraordinarily overwhelming on both scales.
One is made ultimately aware of a direct embodiment of the composer's ineffable intent. And so with a conscious recourse to previous works such as 'Arbos' scored simply for brass, rhythmic and harmonic themes are notably recurrent in the gigantic descending syncopated chorus of Miserere.

As one who is well acquainted with Part's penchant for divine simplicity, new listeners will become immediately infatuated with the striking delicacy of restrained melody and contrapuntal purity heard throughout all tracks in this compilation.
This is devotional music by a devotional man but do not be mislead by the apparently pristine and pious intent,. Part is often wrongly associated by means of orthodoxy with his contemporary, the somewhat priggish, Sir John Tavener. I can do no more for my readers than holler my own distaste for such associations, however biased I might appear. Part's music is clandestine as far as one can allow intellectually, and albeit religiously bound, it withholds an identity so profoundly unattainable elsewhere that is almost torturous to subject ones ear to it.

One does not find in Part, the pastoral reconcilement nor the vexatious Avant Gardism that might be expected from an Eastern European War Child. The silence, indeed the echo of nothingness imbued in that swarthy, infinite space is intoxicating to the very pinnacle of obsession.

What one is able to attain is the diaphanous awareness of a profound absence. However this absence is interpreted is, ultimately, the prerogative of the listener.


A spacious recording of sparse music for reflective solitude   February 8, 2003
 1 out of 3 found this review helpful

A nicely recorded CD, that conveys the space and atmosphere of a interesting music composer. The composer Part cuts his sound down to its minimum components, so instead of a full orchestra and choir you have the essential players only. The use of space and acoustic in the music process is critical to this music. The music of Part has a spiritual quality to it that is timeless and has instant appeal that will reward listeners on each listen. An interesting CD that is well worth investigating. The CD comes with a booklet inside a slipcase. The booklet contains information about the music and contains pictures from the recording sessions that were attended by Part. The only quibble for me is that the booklet is separate to the CD, and it would have been nice to have some of the photos from the recording sessions used on the CD rather than the red lettering and the green cover - a minor point only so don't let that deter you. Ray H [Peterborough]