Arvo P\u00e4rt turns 90 this year and the enigmatic Estonian is a mainstream rather than cult figure these days. Witness the large crowds at a late-night Prom marking his birthday, performed by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the conductor Tonu Kaljuste with understated brilliance, unexpected warmth and exquisite sound. Flanked by gong and bass drum, they conjured an atmosphere of mysticism and devotion.<\/p>\n
It was a beautiful tribute, a concert that invited the listener to slow down and let the silence be heard. Two sequences of meditative miniatures gave us the essence of P\u00e4rt, taking us from 1980, not long after he\u2019d discovered his distinctive \u201ctintinnabuli\u201d style, right up to 2020\u2019s rather lovely F\u00fcr Jan van Eyck. \u201cPeace\u201d was the concert\u2019s unannounced theme, a detail tucked away in the programme but expressed in the opening Da pacem Domine and Peace upon You, Jerusalem. The crystalline beauty of The Deer\u2019s Cry hung in the air, while we headed to the rumbling depths with the organ and men\u2019s voices in De profundis.<\/p>\n
It was a smart touch to interweave P\u00e4rt with composers whose music complemented, contrasted and enlivened. Metaphorical bells echoed through Rachmaninov (two movements from the All Night Vigil), in a performance that illuminated music often treated as dark. The choir\u2019s luminous, deft approach to JS Bach\u2019s motet Ich lasse dich nicht surprised too. And the powerful purity of the soprano Yena Choi\u2019s solo in Galina Grigorjeva\u2019s mesmerising Spring Is Coming was a standout moment.<\/p>\n
So too was Veljo Tormis\u2019s antiwar Curse upon Iron, its ritualistic, elemental energy driven home by Kaljuste, who banged a shaman drum throughout, pacing between the chanting choir and tenor and bass soloists. After this, P\u00e4rt\u2019s Vater Unser felt impossibly fragile, while his Estonian Lullaby encore was the perfect, charming late-night sign-off.<\/p>\n
If the Estonians made the cavernous hall feel like an intimate venue, so too did the clarinettist Martin Frost in the earlier Prom (\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606) as he enticed the audience to sing Gounod\u2019s Ave Maria for his encore, while he virtuosically played the Bach Prelude accompaniment. Elsewhere, the BBC Philharmonic and Joshua Weilerstein gave welcome first Proms airings for Artie Shaw\u2019s Clarinet Concerto and Elsa Barraine\u2019s Second Symphony. Available on BBC Sounds: BBC Philharmonic, Arvo P\u00e4rt at 90<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arvo P\u00e4rt turns 90 this year and the enigmatic Estonian is a mainstream rather than cult figure these days. Witness the large crowds at a late-night Prom marking his birthday, performed by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the conductor Tonu Kaljuste with understated brilliance, unexpected warmth and exquisite sound. Flanked by gong and bass […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001017,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n