Arbos

Arvo Part (Artist), Hillard Ensemble (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 15, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B0000031TT
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #335,439 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #38 in Music > Classical > Instruments > Brass > Trombone

Track Listings

1. Arbos, for 7 recorders & 3 triangles ad lib

2. An den Wassern zu Babel saßen wir und weinten, for trombone & chamber orch

3. Pari intervallo, for organ

4. De Profundis, for male chorus, percussion & organ

5. Es sang vor langen Jahren, for counter-tenor or alto with violin & viol

6. Summa, for SATB chorus or soloists

7. Arbos, for 7 recorders & 3 triangles ad lib

8. Stabat Mater, for soprano, alto, tenor, violin, viola & cello

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential recording

This CD features some great performances by Pärt specialists of a variety of shorter works. The clamorous Arbos for brass makes a startling opening for those who expect abstracted reverence; the lament, An den Wassern, has a startling ending that builds in intensity and volume only to break off mid-phrase. The static Pari Intervallo for organ leads into De Profundis, with its sense of slow but unstoppable movement (every note the same length, every measure the same rhythm). Es Sang has an unexpectedly lilting tune for solo alto, puncutated by string exclamations; Summa is a straightforward Pärt-style setting of the Credo. Arbos is repeated (this is oddly satisfying), and the disc closes with a masterpiece, the unbearably sad Stabat Mater for three voices and three strings. -- Matthew Westphal

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One CD; one Work, July 2, 2000

By 

trm "trm" (Basking Ridge, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arbos (Audio CD)

OK. So he didn't write these all to be one piece of music, but the thing that makes Arbos the sine qua non of Arvo Part's commercial recordings music is that, taken and a whole, it is a primer on his composotional craft.

The full expression of his technique is found in the Stabat Mater, which you'll have to go back 200+ years to Bach before finding an equal example of religious strum und drang subordinated (or elevated) to musical kunst.

The elements of this master stroke are laid bare, pedagogiaclly if not dramatically, in the short works before it.

The "Arbos", acting as sentry between the challenge and the contest, is a pure mensural canon (like the Cantus in Memory of Britten), a fundametal technique in the Stabat Mater.

And, contrary to the "amazon.com essential recording" review above, the De Profundis is not "every measure the same rhythm", but one melodic phrase unit per word (listen to it:

De pro-fun-dis cla-ma-vi ad te Do-mi-ne: <gong> Do-mi-ne ex-au-di vo-cem me-am.

1-3-3-1-1-3: <gong> 3-3-2-2.

First phrase up, next phrase down; first ascending from the tonic, then descending to the tonic). Simple. Brilliant.

Even simpler, Part's technique of melodic elements moving stepping along a scale while harmonic elements skip through a chord are presented in their purest expression in the Pari Intervallo.

And the other three pieces exercise similar expressions of these basic elements, all preparing the listener for the Stadat Mater.

Or, just sit back and let it all wash over you.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Arbos, February 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Arbos (Audio CD)

I was introduced to this music by a Catholic girl; tragicaly romantic, teenage, and often desperate. This is music that can touch within you a place that only surfaces at the lowest points of your life. It has the effect of being uplifting, crushing, and sobering at various times and often times, all at once.

Arvo Part seems to have looked past the mind candy of Western culture and brutaly felt the numbing destruction that characterizes our times. Yet 'Arbos' does not mirror negativity for its own sake. For as much pain as these works communicate, there is also a rare peacefulness to them. A peace stripped of its naivety, tested and refined by its acknowledgement and subsequent struggles with this world's vicious nature.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Evocative, Spiritual (but somewhat minimal) music., September 27, 1998

By 

Benjamin Smedberg ([e-mail]) (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arbos (Audio CD)

This CD is an unique combination of vocal and instrumental pieces. Minimalist musical elements as well as a superb performance by the Hilliard Ensemble, help to focus the listener on the importance of the text.

The music can be difficult to listen to, however, because it requires a lot of concentration. It is not a CD to play in the background while making dinner, for example. You have to allow the music to penetrate your soul, or the CD will sound "boring."

If you are willing to work at listening to this music, it is well worth buying this CD of music by one of the great modern composers.