Cello Octet Amsterdam - Music by Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt, a living composer, has attracted fans of early music because of his stylistic affinity for earlier forms, harmonies, and partly because of the religious aspect of his music. This release, Summa, features music by the composer arranged for cellos. Those already familiar with Pärt's music will like this, as it contains many "hits" among his releases in the past twenty years.
My earlier memory of Pärt's music was from a release on ECM that I'd purchased at the Cincinnati Borders Books and Music with my friend Todd, during a visit to his campus in Oxford, Ohio. That evening in his warm dorm room during his sophomore year we lay upon his bed, listening to the Silouan's Song, an instrumental number for orchestra. My friend asked why I liked this music. I wasn't sure that I yet did like it, but then he interrupted my thoughts. "It's not of this time. It's more universal. It's deep shit. God, I need a drink."
This release includes 16 tracks, including his organ piece, Pari intervallo, which was made famous with another ECM release. It includes Summa, Missa Brevis and the O-Antiphonen. As someone who often didn't look at the texts, the absence of voices doesn't bother me in this release.
Having written a lot of music, not to mention arranged music too, for trombone ensemble, I know the challenges of arranging for one instrument with a limited range. The limit in range never once rears itself in this recording with eight cellos. The players lack vibrato, in keeping with Pärt's aesthetic. Dynamics across the album are a bit limited, for my taste, as is the movement of tempo. Personally, if I were directing this ensemble I might have wanted to play a bit with tempo, but my own biases aside, the ensemble does well to capture the spirit of each piece as an arrangement.
Pärt is an interesting composer for many reasons. Many may say that he's a musical voice that doesn't belong to our time, or, he could be seen equally viable as a needed voice in our time for bringing back the simplicity of harmony born of earlier times into a contemporary space. For me the Cello Octet does well to perform his music in moving, technically-assured ways to even more listeners who may care less about the potential liturgical use of his music. The constant oscillation between harmony and dissonance which pervades his music is well-represented here by cellos.
There's enough stylistic variation among the pieces on this album to provide the listener the benefit of variety. While I'd argue to not listen to this album at one go, in sections, it's revealing and satisfying. I might take each work on its own, some multi-movement, some not.
In the end this album proves that Pärt's music, in some ways like Bach's, works in arranged formats, highlighting the hallmarks of his style, and for this composer, it's one he's called Tintinnabuli, inspired by the sounding and resonance of bells. On cellos the style is no less interesting.
