Track Listing

1. Litany (To Helmuth Rilling And The Oregon Bach Festival)
2. Psalom - Arvo P�rt
3. Trisagion - Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #154953 in Music
• Released on: 2000-01-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
With Litany, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt created one of his most stirring works: a nearly 23-minute-long composition for orchestra and vocal ensemble based on the 24 prayers of St. John Chrysostom (one for each hour of the day). Commissioned for the 25th Oregon Bach Festival, the composition is both memorable and timeless. It finds influences in everything from chant to the repetition of modern minimalism. Play it loudly and the striking vocals of the Hilliard Ensemble simply soar against the strings of the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra. The orchestral Trisagion harkens toward Litany's mood swings and impact, but--sans voice--lacks the mysticism. One of Pärt's best, and as sacred as modern compositions come. --Jason Verlinde

Customer Reviews

Divine for Sure...
I was very skeptical of Part, having seen rave reviews (from Michael Stipe of all people), as I tend to discount rave reviews. I heard a few of his pieces over the years without being at all impressed. If you like JS Bach or Rachmaninoff's "Vespers," then it didn't seem like Part was offering anything substantially new or innovative. Then I heard "Litany" and was blown away by the time the first vocalist intoned "Oh Lord." This music is like a divine nuclear explosion, the sound of a soul calling out for God from the depths of its being (de profundis). Silly descriptions aside, "Litany" is among the most stunning, beautiful compositions ever created by human hands. Catholic, Muslim, Lutheran, Ahmadiyan, Sikh, Buddhist, Athiest, Wiccan, or whatever, "Litany" will make a believer out of you. Having learned to hear Part, I've also come to admire other works, even those I previously disliked.

Cyclic delights
Of all Arvo Pärt's more recent releases, "Litany" probably provides the best illustration to contemporary composers ("serious" and "pop", for want of better delimitations) that music can be intensely cyclic without being compromisingly repetitive or monotonous. The title track is a lengthy religious work that evokes one of the Hilliard Ensemble's most passionate vocal deliveries and progressively animates a fairly simple melody into a stirring crescendo. "Psalom" is a quietly dignified and meditative piece that confirms Pärt's mastery of musical concepts that contemporary pretenders would conveniently call "ambient". But the album's highlight is undoubtedly "Trisagion", where the composer conjours an entirely new range of timbres and textures from a string section and occasionally fools our ears into believing that they are wind instruments.

Amazing
I enjoy classical music, but I know too little to discuss it in a technical level. I understand that Part is regarded with some snobbery in some classical circles, who considered him some sort of neomedieval hack. I beg to disagree. I found this work amazing and stirring and spiritual. There are some similarities with the minimalist school, but this is a work that strikes you at an emotional level, unless the works by Glass, Reich et al.