Track Listing

1. Bogoroditse Djevo
2. I Am The True Vine
3. Ode IX, from Kanon pokajanen
4. Woman With the Alabaster Box, The
5. Tribute To Caesar
6. BERLINER MESSE with Christopher Bowers-Broadbent organ/Kyrie
7. BERLINER MESSE/Gloria
8. BERLINER MESSE/Erster Alleluiavers
9. BERLINER MESSE/Zweiter Alleluiavers
10. BERLINER MESSE/Veni Sancte Spiritus
11. BERLINER MESSE/Credo
12. BERLINER MESSE/Sanctus
13. BERLINER MESSE/Angus dei

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42028 in Music
• Released on: 2000-03-14
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .26 pounds

Amazon.com
Contemporary troubador Paul Hillier has been one of the key players behind introducing Arvo Pärt's music to Western audiences, first through recordings with the Hilliard Ensemble and later through his magnificently innovative group Theatre of Voices. I Am the True Vine continues the collaboration by bringing together some truly vintage Pärt compositions from the '90s. Although it exists on disc in a more elaborate version for choir and strings, the 1990 Berlin Mass was originally written for just four solo voices and organ. Pärt later revised the score, returning to that original sonority, which is the version offered here. The consummate preparation of the Theatre of Voices, in which every line is lovingly unfurled, the whole building into a memorable aural sculpture, only heightens a listener's admiration for Pärt's ability to make the seemingly simple profound. We also hear the composer in a more overtly joyful mood than usual in the short first selection, while the title track--a setting of a text from the Gospel of John and one of three world premiere recordings here--is a marvelously organic example of word painting (representing Pärt's choral virtuosity even when it comes to setting English text). --Thomas May

Customer Reviews

Choral at its best
Paul Hillier, best known for his recordings of early music, brings that sense of urgency and simple piety to the delicate religious music of Arvo Part. This is music which combines gentleness with real force, and the intelligent singing, and capacity to make moments of silence tell as much as grand effects, is entirely admirable. The opening "Hail Mary" reminds us of Baltic folk-choruses and the more elaborate works here--cantatas to English words from the New Testament--like title work, "Tributeto Caesar" and "The Woman with the Alabaster Box"--never entirely leave that style behind for their more austere sound world. The "Berlin Mass" with organ is a powerful devotional work which combines sheer beauty of sound with liturgical practicalities. In all of this work, most of it recent, Part reveals himself as a great master of acapella choral writing

Arvo is the Real Thing
This is the CD I would choose to introduce the music of Arvo Part to a new listener. Why? Because it's beautful music, beautifully sung. Because it's sublimely emotional music, sublimely felt. Because it's modern music that sounds strangely familiar; if you've appreciated Gregorian or Orthodox chant, you'll recognize both the indebtedness and the orginality of Part's music. Because most of the texts are in English or in familiar liturgical Latin; an English text does offer something by way of immediacy.

Arvo Part began his musical career writing successfully in the more or less standard musical vocabulary of modernism. But then, out of dissatisfaction, he turned to the music of the Middle Ages - chant and polyphonic tropes of chant - for new inspiration. There's a lot that's direct Medievalism in this performance. For comparison, listen to some of the CDs of Sequentia singing the Codex Calixtinus, or of Marcel Peres's Ensemble Organum, or of Paul Hillier's Hilliard Ensemble singing Perotinus. Part is plainchant driven to its irrational/rational extreme, taking dissonance and wild tessitura beyond the rules of Medieval composition. While we can instantly relish 11th C organa, I seriously doubt that the 11th C chanters would have comprehended Arvo Part.

Paul Hillier's Theater of Voices is the perfect ensemble to sing this music, all of them having a background in Early Music, all grasping the aesthetics and vocal production techniques to make such music beautiful. The sound recording on this CD is among the best I've ever heard of a choral performance.

Religion has inspired world's greatest music. A huge share of the music I listen to is "religious" even though I am not a religious person. It seems obvious that Arvo Part is a composer striving to express his most profound religious thoughts and feelings in his music. You may wonder why I respond to it so profoundly, if I'm indifferent to the religious thoughts. That's simple. You couldn't be fully human without responding to the transcendent impulse expressed in religious feelings... and in this music.

Music from the Heaven
When I first listened to this CD from a Tower Record sample shelf, I was amazed at the high quality of this recording. The music is sacred and the voices of both Pro Arte Singers and Theatre of Voices are clean and clear, you feel that you are listening to the music from the Heaven. Excellent performance.