Arvo Pärt - Portrait (Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà)

Information

Composer: Arvo Pärt

1. Summa
2. Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten
3. Tabula rasa: I. Ludus
4. Tabula rasa: II. Silentium
5. Wallfahrtslied (Pilgrim's Song)
6. Mozart-Adagio
7. Spiegel im Spiegel

La Pietà
Angèle Dubeau, violin & director
(chorus conducted by Matthias Maute)

Date: 2010
Label: Analekta
https://www.analekta.com/en/album/?dubeau-angele-arvo-part-portrait.1589.html

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Review

An electrifying reading of the classic Tabula rasa leads a wide-ranging portrait

The Canadian ensemble La Pietà, under the direction of its founder, virtuoso violinist Angèle Dubeau, have produced an outstanding Pärt anthology, including such oft-performed works as Summa, Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten and Spiegel im Spiegel, but also a finely honed, edgy rendition of Wallfahrtslied, the curious Mozart-Adagio and, most significantly, an outstanding rendition of Tabula rasa.

From the electric thrill of that astounding opening and the precisely etched canonic entries that succeed it, it was apparent that this was a performance to be taken very seriously indeed. It is remarkably different from the classic Kremer/Grindenko recording on ECM; this chiselled, articulated playing (surely from familiarity with Baroque period performance practice?) makes the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra under Sondeckis sound smooth, velvety, even luxurious. Not that Angèle Dubeau and Josiane Breault (whose name, scandalously, appears only in the orchestral credits on the back inside cover of the booklet – this is a double concerto!) concede anything to Kremer and Grindenko in terms of lyrical warmth; it’s more a question of the atmosphere of the whole. The ECM recording has a definite advantage in the prepared piano playing by the late Alfred Schnittke in the second movement, “Silentium”: he knows just how to pull back ever so slightly before the end of each phrase and place the chord in a way that doesn’t happen here. Analekta’s sound is superb: ECM’s is positively hissy by comparison. I am aware of, I believe, four other recordings of this work, but in order to gauge its depths, I could do no better than recommend the true Pärtian to acquire both.

-- Ivan Moody, Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: **** / SOUND: *****
http://www.allmusic.com/album/arvo-p%C3%A4rt-portrait-mw0001961747
https://www.amazon.com/Arvo-P%C3%A4rt-Portrait/dp/B00354NB4K

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Arvo Pärt (born 11 September 1935 in Paide, Järva County, Estonia) is an Estonian composer of classical and sacred music. Pärt's music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. He is considered a pioneer of holy minimalism, along with Henryk Górecki and John Tavener. His most performed works include Fratres (1977), Spiegel im Spiegel (1978), and Für Alina (1976). Pärt has been the most performed living composer in the world for five consecutive years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvo_P%C3%A4rt

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Angèle Dubeau (born March 24, 1962 in Saint-Norbert, Quebec) is a Canadian violinist. Dubeau studied at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal, with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School of Music, and later went to Romania to work with Ştefan Gheorghiu. She has performed in concert halls in more than 25 countries, won several important international competitions, and has sold more than 300,000 records as a solo classical recording artist. Dubeau formed the all-female string ensemble "La Pietà" in 1997. She plays on the "Des Rosiers" Stradivarius violin from 1733.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ang%C3%A8le_Dubeau
http://www.angeledubeau.com/en/

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