Pärt: Summa [Import]

Arvo Part (Composer), Jean-Jacques Kantorow (Conductor), Jouko Laivuori (Performer), Tapiola Sinfonietta (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Jouko Laivuori
• Orchestra: Tapiola Sinfonietta
• Conductor: Jean-Jacques Kantorow
• Composer: Arvo Part
• Audio CD (February 18, 1997)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Bis
• ASIN: B0000016P1
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #196,391 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Collage over B-A-C-H, for strings, oboe, harpsichord & piano: I. Toccata

2. Collage over B-A-C-H, for strings, oboe, harpsichord & piano: II. Sarabande

3. Collage over B-A-C-H, for strings, oboe, harpsichord & piano: III. Ricercar

4. Fratres, for strings & percussion

5. Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, for string orchestra & bell

6. Summa, for string orchestra

7. Festina lente, for strings & harp ad lib

8. Tabula rasa, concerto for 2 violins (or violin & viola), prepared piano & string orchestra: Ludus (With Movement)

9. Tabula rasa, concerto for 2 violins (or violin & viola), prepared piano & string orchestra: Silemtium (Without Movement)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Introduction to Pärt's music..., December 20, 2004

By 

ewomack "ewomack" (MN USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Pärt: Summa (Audio CD)

Arvo Pärt has slowly emerged over the last two decades from relative obscurity into one of today's preeminent composers. His upbringing under Soviet Russia explains some of his early obscurity. But his compositional career has spanned many styles, some of which Pärt abandoned or refashioned into his own personal voice. It wasn't until the late 1970s (around 1976-1977) that Pärt discovered this voice he calls "tintinnabulation" (for the resonance of bells that the triadal tonality of his compositions are meant to evoke). From that point on his compositions have inexorably followed this form. Where his early works experimented in musical collages and sometimes harsh dissonance, his later works exude a calm contemplation, particularly a contemplation of suffering or longing. The tension in these works originates from his compositional technique, where triads simulate harmonics and overtones, evoking a non-resolution that always seems balanced on the brink of total resolution on an almost note-for-note level.

This CD includes some of Pärt's best known work, and also gives a sampling of his earlier compositional styles. Those familiar only with Pärt's later work may recoil at the harshness and periodic atonality of "Collage sur Bach" from 1964. This work is what it says it is: bits of Bach pieced together for effect in a musical analogy of a photographic collage. Here the piece stands out like solar prominence juxtaposed with Pärt's later work, which makes up the rest of the disc.

A good representative sample of the later Pärt fills out the disc. Some of his most famous pieces are here: "Fratres", "Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten", and "Tabula rasa". These three pieces were composed in the inital catharsis of Pärt's discovery of his personal style around 1977. All of them are intense, forlorn, moving, and awe-inspiring. Hearing them together on one disc gives good justification for Pärt's ever growing reputation as an important contemporary composer. The two remaining pieces on the disc, "Summa" and "Festina lente" date from around the early 1990's. They also provide good samples of Pärt's style and the directions he's taken it following his discovery.

All together this disc serves as a great introduction to Pärt's music. It also serves as a testament that beautiful music can arise from formalism and minimalism (Pärt can arguably be categorized as both, but only arguably). It also provides evidence that contemporary music is not only made up of pounding tone clusters (though "Collage sur Bach" contains many) or spine-bending atonality (not that there's anything wrong with atonality, it's just not for everyone). In Pärt we see a rebirth of an almost medieval appreciation of form, beauty, and suffering. And the twentieth century has contained its fair share of suffering to muse upon.

5.0 out of 5 stars Mysteriously exciting music, December 25, 2007

By 

David Gray Remington (Moscow, Idaho) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pärt: Summa (Audio CD)

The diversity and range of tones in SUMMA's almost experimental but at the same time "classical" music are riveting for me. The impressions echo mysteriously. The use of "distant" bells, the experimental use of the pianio keyboard, the silences and the long-held cello notes are unusually rich. An unusual and haunting musical experience. The best Arvo Part cd for me.

5.0 out of 5 stars Take Part!, May 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Pärt: Summa (Audio CD)

This is my favorite CD of Part's, and that makes it some of the finest music ever made, ever. Just my opinion, but if you respect the roots of classical European music, and want to experience the power and beauty in a distilled, concentrated form, the deceivingly simple structures in this music are combined, and developed to new levels of expression, which will make you return to these pieces for new perspectives, and emotional rewards on different levels at each hearing. Yep, its that good. It will make your eyes water.