Arvo Pärt (b. 1935)
And I heard a voice
Nunc dimittis (2001)
O Holy Father Nicholas (2021)
Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen (1988)
Für Jan van Eyck (2019)
Kleine Litane (2015)
And I heard a voice (2017)
Vox Clamantis/Jaan-Eik Tulve
rec. 2021/2022, Haapsalu Cathedral, Estonia
Texts provided
Reviewed from a WAV download 44.1 kHz/16-bit
ECM New Series 2780 [44]
There is a lovely photograph on the last page of the ECM booklet for this release. Vox Clamantis are standing on a set of steps. At the back is Arvo Pärt and his wife Nora. At the front is a member of the choir holding a baby. As Pärt turns 90 this September, it struck me as a serendipitous conjunction, since so many of the texts the composer sets are concerned with hope and new beginnings. More specifically in this beautiful new recital we see hope for deliverance explicitly placed in the anticipation of Christ’s coming in the Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen; Simeon’s joy at the sight of the newborn Jesus and his mission in the Nunc dimittis; and new beginnings in the prayer sung at the rebuilt Greek Orthodox Church at Ground Zero in O Holy Father Nicholas. But there’s also Pärt’s implied challenge to us ‘to see everything in the light of the end’ as Kristina Kōrver puts in her excellent booklet notes. That’s present in Simeon’s vision of salvation of course, but reinforced in the text from the Book of Revelation in the title track And I heard a voice, appropriately chosen to conclude the programme.
Orienting the album at its beginning is that 2001 setting of the Nunc dimittis. Its foundation is Pärt’s tintinnabuli technique, that is, his use of a texture built from the notes of a triad in one voice and the sounding of a diatonic cluster in another which evokes the sound of bells. The harmonies within the texture are strikingly dissonant in this piece at times suggesting perhaps a state of both apprehension and expectation. Vox Clamantis build the piece skilfully so that its most heightened moment at the word ‘lumen’ appropriately resounds with a fine radiance before the rest of the line ebbs, with lesser crescendos on ‘revelationem’ and ‘gloriam’. The concluding ‘Gloria patri’ is different stylistically, an almost whispered passing of the prayer between voices within the rhythmic framework of a siciliana, which fades almost to inaudibility, as if overcome by awe.
O Holy Father Nicholas was composed for the opening of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine at the World Trade Center Ground Zero site. The original Church was destroyed during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and Pärt chose to set a text in English from the Orthodox liturgy, taken from the feast day of Saint Nicholas. After a beautiful but relatively conventional polyphonic setting of the introductory prayer, he creates layers of sound in the intercessions to Saint Nicholas which follow, with voices entering at different points in the text and at different speeds, building on each other to create a sonic edifice which has a thrilling immediacy in this performance.
Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen are Pärt’s settings of the ‘O Antiphons’ for the last seven days of Advent. They are rooted in Pärt’s understanding of how the theological identity of Christ is reflected in each, and the musical style of the antiphons is accordingly different. So for example we hear the choir exercising its full range in the first anthem ‘O Weisheit’, singing of a wisdom reaching from one end of the world to the other; a real sense of authority in the stately harmonic movement in ‘O Adonai’ reflecting the references to Moses receiving God’s law on Mount Sinai; sharp dissonances in ‘O Spross aus Isais Wurzel’ portraying the emergence of the root of Jesse; stressed blocks of sound in ‘O Schluessel Davids’ giving voice to the desire for liberation and the power of the one who holds the key; and a quite different use of harmonies, again in blocks of sound in ‘O Immanuel’, where the majesty and hope of the saviour of nations is characterised with a nobility which also echoes the material of the first antiphon to bring the cycle full circle. The individual antiphons are very short and the way that Vox Clamantis move from one to the other, encompassing the shifts in style and mood with incredible precision is hugely impressive.
Für Jan van Eyck was written for the reopening of the restored altarpiece Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (1432) by Jan and Hubert van Eyck in St Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent in 2019. Understandably Pärt was drawn to the words of the Agnus Dei in the Ordinary of the Mass and recalled his own setting of it in his Berliner Messe in 1990. Für Jan van Eyck opens with a reflective organ solo which has a feeling of the improvisatory about it before the choir joins, exquisitely. The setting has a tremendous tenderness and the quality of an extended meditation (it’s about twice the length of the Berliner Messe Agnus). The blend of organ and voices is delicately sustained at low volume, and one is struck at its conclusion by the atmosphere of awe and humility engendered.
Kleine Litanei was composed for the reopening of St Virgil’s Chapel in Vienna in 2015. The Chapel was lost under the ruins of the larger church of which it was part in a fire in the 18th century and only rediscovered two centuries later. Pärt compiled the text himself, and his music makes powerful use of the repetitions in the text, sparingly employing dissonances in the tintinnabuli timbre as the work progresses, combined with a gradual increase in volume. The effect is both impassioned and prayerful.
The final work And I heard a voice is the most obviously eschatological, using words from the Book of Revelation whose key message is expressed as ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.’ Rarely for Pärt, the text chosen is in Estonian, taken from a translation of the New Testament which caught his attention because in the version he was reading the phrase ‘they may rest from their labours’ is rendered as ‘they may breathe from their labours’. Pärt went on to say that in this version it is as if ‘they have passed away, they are catching their breath, but at the same time they are still with us. It is like eternal life.’ Pärt’s setting brilliantly evokes the rhythm of breathing and the piece is effectively both a serene benediction and sensitive lullaby for those who are just sleeping, awaiting the resurrection. Vox Clamantis’s performance captures this dual purpose perfectly and it has a wonderful forward momentum, a check against an atmosphere of somnolence that might be evoked in a less attentive rendition.
Vox Clamantis and their gifted director Jaan-Eik Tulve have provided a thoughtful and highly memorable tribute. Their sound has been atmospherically captured by ECM in Haapsalu Cathedral. I can’t think of how this 90th birthday present could be bettered.
Dominic Hartley
Buying this recording via a link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free
