Creator Spiritus Reviews
01.06.12, Organists' Review, June 2012
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
Paul Hillier's special artistic relationship with Arvo Pärt guarantees that any recording he directs of works by him must be taken very seriously indeed. Here he concentrates on chamber music, both choral miniatures and works with voice and instruments (organ and string quartet), in an anthology that ranges across several decades of work and involves Hillier's own vocal ensembles as well as regular instrumental collaborators. Therefore, these performances are characterised by a profound knowledge of and respect for Pärt's work, making these recordings about as authoritative as one could wish for.
The quality of the singing, whether from choir or soloists, is outstanding. Ars Nova Copenhagen, warm of tone and wonderfully sonorous, responds to every tiny detail with exemplary discipline and the rather growly basses form an interesting textural foundation to the purer tones above. Among the highlights are a mystically measures, glowing account of The Deer's Cry, a luminously lovely Peace be upon you, Jerusalem, and a reading of Morning Star, that captures what was surely Pärt's intent, to represent Christ's advent as inexorable as the dawn.
The longest work at c.25 minutes is the poised and plangent Stabat Mater, scored for three solo voices and strings. This work above all illustrates Pärt's almost miraculous manipulation of a narrow palette of sound-colour to deliver a tremendous emotional impact. There never was a composer, surely, for whom one might so aptly say that "less is more", and this is an ideal starter disc for anyone wanting to get to know Pärt and his inimitable musico-spiritual language.
Rebecca Tavener
Himmelsk skaparande Arvo Pärt (Creator Spiritus CD)
01.06.12, Opus Magazine, Sweden
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
ÄNNU EN HELGJUTEN inspelning med Arvo Pärts djupt meditativa musik, som fångar lyssnaren med 75 minuter koncentrerat lyssnande. Här bjuds vokal kammarmusik i en omänskligt skön förening av harmonisk komplexitet och stram enkelhet.
Under sitt namn på omslag och i presentation har Pärt träffande tillägnats titeln Creator Spiritus, tagen ur den 800-talshymn, som inleder produktionen; Veni creator Spiritus - Kom, Skaparande, Herre God! (Sv Ps 50). För att slutligen landa i ett av Pärts alla katagorier viktigaste verk, Stabat Mater (1985) presenteras en representativ samling av tonsättarens produktion i det mindre formatet efter sekelskiftet. Trots omisskännligt Pärt-signum har varje sats sin egen identitet - alla produkter av en och samma skaparande!
Starkt intryck gör stråkkvartettsatsen Solfeggio (2008), ett omarbetat körverk från 1964. I psaltarpsalmen Peace upon you, Jesusalem presterar de kvinnliga koristerna otroligt sköna, nästan (!) osångbara ackordföljder. Och så till slut det gripande Stabat Mater, 26 minuter kammarmusik för 3 röster och 3 stråkar, där Else Torp i Ars Nova Copenhagen excellerar i knivskarpa, skyhöga tonföljder instrumentalt beledsagad i tätt legatissimo. Årets skiva?
JERKER SJÖQVIST
27.05.12, HispaOpera - weblaopera.com
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
Excelente disco el que edita Harmonia Mundi en formato SACD (Super Audio CD) en el que la prestigiosa agrupación ‘Theatre of Voices‘ junto a la ‘Ars Nova Copenhagen‘ dirigidos por Paul Hillier y acompañados por la agrupación camerística NYYD Quartet y el organista Christopher Bowers-Broadbent interpretan una colección de piezas corales e instrumentales pertenecientes a distintas épocas de la carrera creativa del compositor estonio Arvo Pärt (1935), pionero en el estilo denominado ‘minimalismo sacro’.
Desde su ‘Stabat Mater‘ (1985) hasta su ‘Solfeggio‘ (2008) pasando por hasta otras 8 piezas corales o con la intervención de cantantes solistas en unos casos e instrumentales en otros, la recopilación llamada ‘Creator Spiritus‘ es buena muestra de la belleza y la expresividad de la música compuesta por Pärt, con una interpretación magistral de cantantes e instrumentistas dirigidos por Paul Hillier en lo que supone un disco absolutamente recomendable. Una inquietante atmósfera creada para que podamos escuchar el sonido de lo sagrado.
17.05.12, Audiophile Audition - audaud.com
This is one of the most gratifying Pärt albums I have heard yet; consisting of music lately done in the 2000s with a few earlier works (like the noted Stabat Mater, one of the works that established the composer’s reputation), I was amazed upon hearing it all in one sitting at the immense stylistic dissimilarities in this music. For a composer like Pärt, whom each time I put in my player poses no surprises as to how I think he usually sounds, this was a surprise. Spanning only about a decade with the aforementioned Stabat and two other early eighties pieces both revised in the late 1990s, hearing these pieces side by side puts to rest the criticism that the composer has often had to endure that his music sounds too much alike. Of course pieces like Fratres, arranged for umpteen instrumental combinations and presented over and over on recordings as somehow unique don’t help this situation. But in fact there is a lot more to Pärt than we normally assume, and this music from the 2000s shows a remarkably consistent yet diverse style that finds its impulse not just from minimalist tendencies, but also from melody, rhythm, and even ensemble color.
One of the nice aspects to this recording and a credit to Hillier’s programming skill is the inclusion of works that have different ensemble makeups; strings have always played a big part in Pärt, and the complimentary yet quite different sounds of the two choral groups resonate in the ears long after the work ends. Bowers-Broadbent’s brilliant organ adds another strand of color to pieces that blossom with tints and hues of all sorts, and span the emotional spectrum as well. Absolutely essential! HM’s typically high production values present throughout, and the sound is stunning.
Steve Ritter
15.05.12, GRAMOPHONE, June 2012
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
Hillier's choirs combine for the maestro's Fifth Pärt recording.
Arvo Pärt has amassed over 50 works for accompanied or unaccompanied choir over the years. Seven of them are included on this impressively packaged disc featuring the
Theatre of Voices, Ars Nova Copenhagen and the NYYD Quartet, directed by Paul Hillier. Both vocal and instrumental forces are brought together in the bone-chilling, claustrophobic "Ein Wallfahrtslied" ('Pilgrims' Song') and the more expansive Stabat mater, which rounds off the recording. The use of string quartet in both works rather than the usual string orchestra lends a more intimate and personal quality. It also provides greater balance between the voices and instruments, as heard in the slowly falling steps at the beginning of the Stabat mater.
Theatre of Voices have lived and breathed Pärt's music for over two decades but it is perhaps the warmth and beauty of the voices of Ars Nova Copenhagen that is most immediately striking here. Their interpretation of The Deer's Cry, a setting of St Patrick's chant, remains restrained until it bursts into life some two-thirds in, before falling back to the simple opening statement via an almost barbershop sequence of chords. Not the Pärt that we have come to expect, maybe; but there exists far more variety in this music than he is often given credit for. Indeed, Pärt's setting of Robert Burns's 'My heart's in the highlands' is something of a understated highlight, with Else Torp's motionless lines wonderfully complemented and supported by Christopher Bowers-Broadbent on organ.
Hillier comments that Pärt 'draws such powerfully expressive music directly out of the rhythms and forms of the text ... almost as if the words have composed the music'. Such
affinities between sound and word are certainly drawn to the surface on this excellent disc.
Pwyll ap Siôn
14.05.12, LISTEN, Summer 2012
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
Choral master Paul Hillier knows the music of Arvo Pärt as well as anyone, having been there for the composer's early ECM recordings, written one of the few books on him and,
lately, led a series of excellent Pärt surveys for Harmonia Mundi. Here, Hillier offers an intimate collection of vocal and instrumental chamber pieces that range across the Estonian's career, anchored by the Stabat Mater of 1985 - a contemporary classic that stands with the greatest works devoted to the "grieving mother;' from Josquin to Poulenc. This performance of the Stabat Mater is beautifully sung and recorded. "My Heart Is in the Highlands" - a setting of the Robert Burns ballad for solo high voice and organ - is one of Pärt's most perfect creations; sung here by soprano Else Torp (Hillier's wife), it will crush a sensitive soul. Another standout is "Ein Wallfahrtslied" (A Pilgrim's Song), which has a dark edge rare for latter-day Pärt; as a string quartet lays down a snaking, chromatic path, tenor and baritone intone the psalm-like specters, lonely but ever-determined.
- B.B.
12.05.12, The Arts Desk.com
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
I was underwhelmed by Arvo Pärt’s recent Fourth Symphony; there, the lack of incident couldn’t help sounding a little dull. Happily, this anthology has re-energised my enthusiasm for this most peculiar of contemporary composers. Pärt’s vocal music invariably succeeds; the colour, the humanity of massed voices breathing warmth and cool sensuality into the notes. Paul Hillier’s selection is described as a chamber music collection, featuring several instrumental works alongside chamber scale as choral works. You can ponder for hours exactly what gives this music its appeal; Pärt’s gift lies in his ability to convey so much with so little. The spaces between the notes speak volumes. You could analyse several of these pieces and marvel at the sheer lack of event. Invariably the results approach the sublime – sample the tiny, recent Veni Creator, where the opening major chord is effortlessly, inventively extended for three minutes. Or The Deer’s Cry, a restrained setting of a text by St Patrick. Ars Nova Copenhagen’s glorious singing will elicit shivers of delight.
Of the string quartet works, Solfeggio, a recent transcription of a 1963 choral work, fascinates as an example of Pärt’s earlier style; attractive, though less euphonious and more academic. You’ll need this disc for a rare recording of the extended Stabat Mater of 1986, unusually scored for three solo singers and string trio. Pärt’s decision to combine soprano, counter-tenor and tenor lends the music a unique colour, and the string writing is perfectly judged. Light relief of sorts is provided by soprano Else Torp’s gorgeous delivery of a Robbie Burns poem. Again, it’s impossible to understand how such a bald setting exerts such an insidious, seductive grip. As an introduction to Pärt’s world, this could hardly be bettered.
Graham Rickson
10.05.12, ConcertoNET.com
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
Although not as widely proclaimed as a mere decade ago, it is still not unusual to hear that “Classical Music” is dying. Orchestras are broke, record labels are going extinct and things are in dire shape. However, in many ways, “Classical Music” has never been better off. There are more professional orchestras than ever before, and in the age of the internet, the proliferation of some of the finest performances of all time is just a Facebook post away. What we have here in this latest effort from Paul Hillier and his Theatre of Voices is yet another indication that those of us who love “Classical Music” have never had it so good. This recording adds to the embarrassment of riches that is the constantly growing catalogue of Arvo Pärt recordings. As it proves, the revered Estonian master is most deserving of having his beautiful work recorded as the forces under Paul Hillier do a fine job indeed.
Arvo Pärt’s other-worldly musical language is inspired in these works, most of which were written or revised in the past 10 years. These are some of his most intimate and devout works. Mostly for chamber choir, Hillier utilizes his five-voice ensemble, Theatre of Voices, and augments it with Ars Nova Copenhagen, a group of 18 total. Two pieces for string quartet, finely executed by NYYD Quartet, are featured as sort of intermezzi. Given Pärt’s placid, minimalist language, this disc might have been at risk of lulling the listener or, rather, fading into the background altogether. However, the intensity and thoughtfulness of the performances ensure this is not the case. Hillier and his groups do an outstanding job with pieces such as “The Deer’s Cry,” and “Most Holy Mother of God.” These are pieces that build in intensity and complexity into a profound emotional state of devotion. Hillier and Ars Nova Copenhagen manage to fill the recording space with a thunderous sound, giving piercing accuracy to Pärts harmonies. Furthermore, this is not an ensemble whose technical proficiency is the raison d'être. The subtle intensity in their delivery of the sacred texts is powerful and authentic. The grace of their phrasing and skill of ensemble is inspired. The only piece that comes off less than a complete success is “Peace Upon You, Jerusalem.” It never quite takes off as a coherent melding of text and music. It seems the singers may be trying too hard to set the text apart dramatically from Pärt’s other music.
In any case, this is a minor reservation. With performances such as the opening “Veni Creator,” and “Morning Star,” this is clearly a first-rate choir singing first-rate music. Pärt’s compositional style is one that wears exceedingly well. Most admirably, it is a style he is deftly able to mold to his chosen text. The music is undoubtedly Pärt’s, but it is fresh and moving. The soprano piece “My heart’s in the highlands,” is a poignant ballad that the composer manages to bring immediacy to by using a solo voice who never strays from three notes. Else Torp sings it with raw authenticity. The final piece on the disc, Pärt’s Stabat Mater from 1985, is given a memorable treatment. Performed by just three singers and three strings, it is authoritative and supremely confident in the best possible way. It is foreboding in ensemble and technique, but entrances are crisp and unobtrusive; intonation is perfect and the three singers manage to find an ideal coalescence of vowel and tone. It is remarkable. The listener is left with the text and the music, both of incomparable pitifulness.
On balance, it is hard to imagine a better service to Pärt’s unique and important music than this disc. Hillier’s two groups are nothing short of fantastic. The playing of NYYD Quartet and Christopher Bowers-Broadbent provide a fine compliment to the singers and convey a unique understanding of Pärt’s writing. The team at harmonia mundi do a beautiful job in capturing the details of the performance space and balancing the singers and instrumentalists. The SACD surround sound is lush yet immediate, with a warm sheen to the higher frequencies. Fans of choral music and Pärt’s music in particular should not hesitate to add this to their collections. As long as recordings like this keep being produced, the “Classical Music” world will be in fine shape.
Matthew Richard Martinez
01.05.12, ARIAMA.com
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
Excerpt: The performances are beyond criticism. A Hillier choir, whether it’s Theatre of Voices, Ars Nova Copenhagen or the National Chamber Choir of Ireland (as heard in Tarik O’Regan’sAcallam na Senórach <http://www.ariama.com/albums/oregan-acallam-na-senssorach-an-irish-colloquy-%28national-chamber-choir-of-ireland-harmonia-mundi-2011%29> ), is a perfectly tuned, vocally homogenous and absolutely responsive choir. Organist Bowers-Broadbent dips into a striking tonal palette and his contributions add much to the program, as does the Estonian NYYD Quartet who are outstanding in Psalom and Solfeggio, the two purely instrumental works on the recording. The engineering is another Brad Michel gem which captures the warm acoustic of Copenhagen’s Garnisonkirken without compromising detail. Outstanding in every way, Creator Spiritus is essential for both Pärt newcomers and veterans.
27.04.12, 105.9 FM WQXR - The Classical Music Station of NYC
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
With a relationship that extends beyond artistic collaboration and goes firmly into friendship, each Paul Hillier and Arvo Pärt recording is a reason to let out a praise-worthy “hallelujah,” even if such ebullient exclamations are anathema to Pärt’s Baltic brand of introspectively limned melodic lines.
And when it comes to such stock, this disc—spanning over two decades of the composer’s career—shows how expertly Pärt deals in such subliminal messaging. Texts from the Medieval period and based on Gregorian musicality get a millennial makeover with a touch of Soviet-era cynicism cloaked under plaintive yearning and purgative expression. It’s religion for the 21st Century; as encapsulatory of our sacred and secular lives as Bach was to his own times, with an equal amount of challenges (in his own time, Bach often came to blows with religious leaders for writing works “too modern” for worship).
The album opens with one of the more recent works included, 2006’s Veni Creator, a piece that breaks through with Vermeerian beams of light here and there, illuminating a richly dark and textured sonic still-life. Take that against 1985’s Stabat Mater, a 26-minute work that closes the album, and you get a full spectrum of emotions both reassuring and unsettling. Whether they’re tears of happiness or sadness, Pärt’s main concern is the salty ocular water itself. Even a tune like Peace Upon You, Jerusalem, opening with the words “I rejoiced” has a cool emotional restraint in the singers’ expression, which in a way tests the listener as to how their own emotional response will come through.
Which isn’t to say that you can’t simply sit back and allow Pärt to wash over you without going through an intellectually and histrionically rigorous course of calisthenics. Hillier ensures this, weaving sublime musical performances out of his two ensembles—Ars Nova Copenhagen and Theatre of Voices—together with instrumental appearances by the NYYD Quartet (who demonstrate vocal inclinations on tracks like Psalom) and organist Christopher Bowers-Broadbent. Minimally inclined though Pärt may be, this collection ensures maximum, ecstatic effect.
Olivia Giovetti
25.04.12, Fono Forum
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
Paul Hillier unterhält gute Kontakte zur nord-osteuropäischen Musikszene, die bekanntlich ein besonders inniges Verhältnis zur Vokalmusik pflegt. Hilliers aktuelle Produktion mit Theatre of Voices und der glänzenden Ars Nova Copenhagen kommt nach Berios wuseligen ”Comic-Strips” wieder betont ’untheatralisch’ daher: Sie widmet sich vor allem jüngeren A-cappella-Kompositionen Arvo Pärts. Dies geschieht so brilliant wie unprätentiös. Die geistlichen Chorstücke zeigen den estnischen Komponisten dabei gewohnt minimalistisch und spirituell, beinhalten in der bekannten Synthese aus östlicher Volksmusik und Liturgie aber auch Überraschungen.
So folgt das tänzerische ”Peace Upon You, Jerusalem” (2002) in einer für Pärt ungewohnt illustrativen Weise der Textvorlage aus dem Psalm 122. Genau umgekehrt halt es die Motette “Most Holy Mother Of God” (2003) und wiederholt wie eine Gebetsformel eine einzige Textzeile. Verblüffend chromatisch geht es im “Wallfahrtslied” (1996) zu, während die durhaltigen Klangflächen des “Solfeggio” (1964) in der Bearbeitung für Streichquartett auf verblüffende Weise vor Ohren führen, dass Pärt lange vor seiner Bekehrung zum Dreiklang schon ein Zeremonienmeister der Kargheit war.
Sehr hübsch vorgetragen: das volkstümliche "My Heart's In The Highlands" (2000), dessen schlichter Charme exemplarisch für den Geist der ganzen Einspielung einstehen kann, die sich als atmosphärisch dichtes Gesamtpaket präsentiert. Auch Pärts Hauptwerk, das “Stabat Mater”, lässt als Fassung für drei Solisten und Streichtrio keine Wünsche offen. Es ist ein Glücksfall gerade für Pärts Musik, dass fast alle Interpreten hier sowohl Spezialisten für Alte als auch Neue Musik sind.
Dirk Wieschollek, Fono Forum Mai 2012
Musik: 5 Sterne
Klang: 5 Sterne
22.04.12, BUFFALO NEWS
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
Arvo Part “as a composer of chamber music, if we include in that category a few pieces for chamber choir” is how Paul Hillier, quite simply, explains his gorgeous new disc of music by the great mystic master from Estonia, one of the best known postmodern composers in the world. The major work on the disc is the “Stabat Mater” from 1985 for three singers and string trio, all of whom, as Hillier eloquently explains, have to understand that Part’s music “requires both intense feeling under a surface of stillness and the ability to emerge suddenly into the most violent declamation.” Other works include “Solfeggio” first composed in 1964 and the “Veni Creator” and “The Deer’s Cry” from 2006 and 2007, along with, most unusually for Part, a 2000 solo voice setting of Robert Burns’ “My Heart’s in the Highlands.” The sound of the uppermost voice in Hillier’s choirs—soprano Else Trop—is somewhere between celestial and astounding.
3 1/2 stars out of four.
Jeff Simon
20.04.12, Irish Times
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
5 stars
The longest of the 10 works recorded here is the Stabat Mater of 1985, which Paul Hillier sees as a piece of chamber music that just happens to be written for three voices and string trio. The most recent is The Deer’s Cry (2007), which was commissioned by the Louth Contemporary Music Society and premiered in Drogheda in 2008. Hillier and his colleagues are fully at ease with the slowness of undertow and sense of near-repose that the unfolding self-similarity creates in so many of the pieces here. And they rightly often glory in the glowing resonances they’re presented with. The patient, softly-contoured gentleness they bring to the start of The Deer’s Cry is mesmerising and makes the stresses of its later insistence – climax seems too strong a word – all the more effective.
MICHAEL DERVAN
14.04.12, www.MusicaEterna.fr
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
Sur la pochette du disque, une salle obscure et déserte, au sol grisâtre et aux murs épurés. Surfaces lisses et vierges, sans décoration ni tapisserie. Au fond, une porte ouverte sur une pièce encore plus sombre, qui cache on ne sait quel abîme existentiel. Une atmosphère sinistre, qui le serait assurément s’il n’y avait pas, là au milieu du sol, ce carré de lumière blanche et vive, reflet d’une énergie créatrice qui vient du dehors, pleine d’espoir et de vie. Une mise en scène symbolique, et parfaitement adaptée aux oeuvres d’Arvo Pärt contenues sur ce disque, qui, malgré un caractère souvent intense, voire lugubre, sont toujours traversées par cette lumière blanche et pure, clé de la sérénité même.
Passée l’esthétique intrigante de la pochette, ce nouvel album du label Harmonia Mundi nous réserve d’autres réjouissances, puisqu’il rassemble plusieurs pièces récentes du compositeur estonien, comme The Deer’s Cry, Morning Star, ou encore Veni Creator, la pièce qui a inspiré le titre de l’album. Et à la différence d’un chanteur de variétés ou d’un groupe de rock, dont les singles paraissent dans les bacs quelques semaines après leur composition, les « singles » de Pärt, s’ils sont régulièrement donnés en concert, mettent parfois plusieurs années à être enregistrés en disque…
Ainsi de la pièce Morning Star, composée en 2007, sans doute la nouveauté la plus intéressante de ce disque, et qui récompense d’une très belle façon la patience du mélomane. Ecrite pour choeur SATB a cappella, il s’agit d’une commande pour les 175 ans de l’Université de Durham en Angleterre. Arvo Pärt met en musique la prière gravée sur le tombeau de Bède le Vénérable, célèbre érudit du 8e siècle auteur notamment d’une Histoire de l’Angleterre inestimable:
Christ est l’étoile du matin / qui, après la nuit / de ce monde / apporte à ses saints / la promesse de / la lumière de la vie /et ouvre le jour éternel.
De la nuit à la lumière du jour éternel, c’est la pochette de l’album, et c’est aussi le chemin de cette prière que Pärt met en musique d’une façon absolument remarquable, avec une vague de tensions qui se résolvent peu à peu en un effort de plus en plus langoureux et enivrant, jusqu’à atteindre la délivrance finale qui, une fois n’est pas coutume chez Pärt, prend la forme d’une cadence parfaite avec un accord majeur.
Le chemin émotionnel de cette pièce, tortueux mais jouissif, contraste avec la simplicité déconcertante du Veni Creator, pour chanteurs solistes et orgue. Ici, point de ténèbres : c’est l’incarnation de la Sérénité même, où la lumière éternelle de l’Esprit créateur pénètre avec grâce les coeurs comme un baume apaisant.
Quant aux autres pièces chorales récentes réunies sur ce disque, The Deer’s Cry, Most Holy Mother of God et Peace upon you, Jerusalem, le fan d’Arvo Pärt y trouvera aussi pleinement son compte ; tous les ingrédients qui cimentent son langage si épuré et personnel y sont réunis.
Les interprètes
On ne présente plus Paul Hillier, célèbre ambassadeur de la musique de l’Estonien depuis presque 30 ans, dont les précédents enregistrements chez Harmonia Mundi ont tous fait date. On le retrouve ici chef à la tête de l’excellent choeur Ars Nova Copenhagen, et baryton dans son ensemble de solistes Theatre of Voices. L’organiste Christopher Bowers-Broadbent, lui aussi l’un des plus célèbres interprètes de Pärt (il a créé plusieurs de ses oeuvres), est encore une fois ici le fidèle accompagnateur dans les pièces vocales Veni Creator et My heart’s in the Highlands. Ce dernier, un chant composé en 2003 sur le célèbre poème de Robert Burns, est ici enregistré par la soprano danoise Else Torp. Son interprétation est très belle, mais difficile de surpasser celle du contre-ténor David James, du Hilliard Ensemble, dont la voix cristalline est d’une pureté incomparable.
L’originalité de cet enregistrement composé majoritairement d’oeuvres vocales, vient de la participation du NYYD Quartet, ensemble estonien qui livre une prestation incarnée du Psalom, et de la pièce Solfeggio, originellement écrite pour choeur a cappella. Mais c’est dans le Stabat Mater, une des pièces phares de Pärt, et de loin la pièce la plus longue de ce disque (26mn) que le quatuor s’exprime le plus généreusement, aux côtés des excellents solistes du Theatre of Voices. Il existe maintenant plusieurs versions en disque de ce Stabat Mater, et celle-ci se classe incontestablement parmi les plus abouties. Rien ne dépasse, l’équilibre des voix est parfait, l’expressivité est à son comble.
Voici donc encore un très beau disque consacré à la musique éthérée et atemporelle d’Arvo Pärt, où se côtoient pièces récentes et oeuvres plus anciennes, le tout dans une atmosphère plutôt intimiste, servi par des interprètes de très grande qualité. Un must have!
08.04.12, The Observer, The Guardian
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
This collection of choral chamber pieces by Arvo Pärt (b 1935) conjures that mood of stillness which has given the Estonian composer near cult status, the vocal writing inspired more by medieval and Orthodox chant than by any of the musical fads or revolutions of the intervening centuries. It is no surprise that the virtuosic singers in Theatre of Voices and Ars Nova Copenhagen are often to be found in early music ensembles. The 10 works span more than two and a half decades, opening with the Pentecostal hymn "Veni creator" (2006) and including Pärt's musically symmetrical setting of the Stabat Mater (1985). The NYYD Quartet and organist Christopher Bowers-Broadbent add sonic variety to this pure, minimalist enterprise.
Fiona Maddocks
06.04.12, Definitely the Opera
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
As you’ll inevitably get Bach-ed out this weekend, this is perfect music in which to take refuge. Creator Spiritus is a selection of Arvo Pärt’s pieces that could be called twenty-first-century sacred. The texts used are the religious poetry by medieval monks, standard liturgical chants and Stabat Mater, but the music is of our time, questioning, uneasy. It is expressive only according to its own logic, even when it quotes di Lasso, Palestrina and Joaquin Desprez. It can get atmospheric as well as ascetic, exuberant as well as full of dread, but it is not exactly easily amenable to straightforward institutional worship.
It took me some time to make up my mind if some of the pieces – jubilant, beautiful “Veni, creator”, for example – could belong in a religious ceremony, and decided against. The music is too darn interesting, makes you take note of it and contemplate it outside of the context of it being a suitable channel to the divinity. It doesn’t go straight for your emotions – it more kind of clears the mind clouds.
There are pieces in which the vocal line – usually solo, sometimes divided between two voices — moves in a very limited way, only within a triad or anchoring on a single note, and it’s up to the instruments to speak more elaborately. For example, “My heart is in the highlands” (2000) with the female voice against the organ behaving peculiarly; or “Der Wallfahrtslied” (A Pilgrim’s Song, 1984, rev. 1996) with a male monotone against a proper modernist string quartet piece.
In “Most Holy Mother of God, Save Us” (2003), there is no other text, and in the Orthodox tradition, no instruments either. The chorus weaves its intricate lines of the same liturgical chant a cappella. In “The Deer’s Cry” (2007), again no instruments to the full choir, but what colours, what symphonic riches are achieved with seemingly looping, self-hypnotic text! Written by St. Patrick in 344, it goes:
Christ with me
Christ before me
Christ behind me
Christ in me
Christ beneath me
Christ above me
Christ on my right
Christ on my left
[…]
It’s one of the most straightforwardly moving pieces in the collection, with vocal sections dividing and reuniting and breaking against one another.
Then there’s “Peace upon you, Jerusalem” (2002) for the female choir, with its almost-movements spelled out by the composer in unusual detail (rigorosamente, con anima, tranquillo etc). Paul Hillier points out in the notes that it’s “one of the more fanciful of Pärt’s compositions in the sense that the setting is through-composed and responds vividly to the meaning and rhetoric of the words”. In other words, it’s unusual of Pärt to make music that illustrates the words and whatever emotions they’re supposedly conveying. But every now and again he changes tack.
The final and longest piece is Stabat Mater (1985), which Pärt set for three voices and trio of strings, and many combinations thereof (solos, duets instrument-voice, duets voice-voice, trio instrument-instrument-voice, and so on). In their generally chant-like musical format, the voices are somewhat more constrained than the instruments, which are also given their own independent segments, each a very bold statement and so much more than interlude.
A fascinating re-think of the sound of the sacred.
05.04.12, Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
When Paul Hillier turns to the choral music of Arvo Part, one anticipates the results with expectation. Maestro Hillier has a way with Part's music; the idiosynchratic modern-early music amalgam that is so much a part of Part finds an ideal interpreter in Hillier. A new volume of choral works, Creator Spiritus (Harmonia Mundi 807553), will be out in a few days. Paul Hillier, his choral ensembles Theatre of Voices and Ars Nova Cophenhagen team with the NYYD Quartet and organist Christopher Bowers-Broadbent for a program of mostly brief works covering all stages of the composer's career.
Much of the music has the upward-reaching cosmic sacredness for which Part is known and revered. Other than the beautifully open 26-minute "Sabat Mater" they are in miniature form. "My Heart is in the Highlands" stays on the mind as a haunting re-creation of an old folk song, in English and German versions. But it's all a welcome addition to the Part cannon.
The vocalists and instrumentalists sound heavenly. Paul Hillier works his magic. It is most definitely worth seeking out.
01.04.12, sidsmith.blogspot.co.uk
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
There surely can’t be too many people left on the face of the planet that haven’t encountered Arvo Pärt’s work cropping up as it does in numerous film and TV spots. He’s fast become the go-to composer when producers want to imbue a scene with a moment of spirituality or emotional poignancy.
You’d think that kind of familiarity would breed if not contempt exactly, then a mounting indifference to the stark lines of his patented brand of tintinnabulation. Yet, as this new collection shows, his music retains a special grace and ambiguity that somehow enables the sense of the sacred and the secular to emerge unscathed from such commercial applications.
Thanks to the warmth and pin-sharp clarity of this SACD production one is enveloped by the rich intensity of Theatre Of Voices and Ars Nova Copenhagen, who between them serve Pärt’s yearning harmonies with a telling precision.
Peace Upon You, Jerusalem has the majority of voices coalesce around a single chord gloriously sustained for nearly a full minute. Across this unwavering support, the remaining singers perform a series of simple yet devastatingly effective cadences whose impact is as satisfying as it is profound.
The combination of a single voice and Christopher Bowers-Broadbent’s delicately climbing organ on My Heart’s in the Highlands offers further reveries, and the same suspenseful mood occurs during Ein Wallfahrtslied though here augmented by the NYYD Quartet. Beginning with strings gradually layered into delicate folds of oblique harmony, violins drift lazily away, high above the darkening embers of descending cello.
Throughout the ten pieces there's an uncluttered fragility gently flickering like a candle flame caught between the winds of sound and silence. It’s this inexorable journey to stillness, and the stunning economy by which it gets there which makes Pärt’s music compelling, timeless and moving.
Sid Smith
30.03.12, The Independent
Arvo Pärt: Creator Spiritus, Harmonia Mundi HMU807553
Yet another brilliant Arvo Pärt programme from Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices, Creator Spiritus intersperses religious choral works from different eras of the composer's career with chamber-music pieces of comparable tone and piety, building to the climactic 26-minute "Stabat Mater".
"The Deer's Cry" is a setting of St Patrick's chant on the omniscience of Jesus, while "Most Holy Mother of God" is the one line repeated 17 times in different configurations and inflections. But it's the "Stabat Mater" which impresses most, a sublime concord of voices and strings in Pärt's characteristic tintinnabulate flotation.
*****
Andy Gill