PÄRT — Piano Music · Ralph van Raat · NRCP · JoAnn Falletta (2011) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat's collection of Arvo Pärt's piano music spans nearly 50 years of his career, from student pieces written in 1958 to a work from 2006. This would not be the right album for listeners looking primarily for Pärt's legendary austere simplicity, but it would be ideal for anyone already familiar with the composer looking for exposure to the broad stylistic and expressive range of which he is capable. The two Sonatinas, Op. 1, are often reminiscent of Prokofiev's vivacity and lyricism, and are witty, engaging pieces. The 1959 Partita, Op. 2, while employing serial procedures, is still largely tonal and nowhere near as daunting as the cutting-edge avant-garde of the period. Für Alina, from 1976, was one of Pärt's breakthrough pieces, in which he wholeheartedly embraced the principles of simplicity, quiet, and the significance of the silences between notes; this work marks the beginnings of the revolutionary sound for which Pärt is best known. Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka, in six very brief movements, written the following year, inhabits the same contemplative, uncluttered, unhurried soundworld. Much of it, in fact, consists of a single melodic line. The most recent piece on the album, the entirely tonal, gently arppegiated Für Anna Maria, from 2006 has a sweetness that sounds almost new age. Lamentate: Homage to Anish Kapoor and his sculpture "Marsyas," (2002), at 35 minutes, is essentially a piano concerto and stands in stark contrast to the other works both in scope and tone. The sculpture is phenomenally large, ten stories high and nearly 500 feet long, and Pärt's work is appropriately monumental. It's not particularly grand in traditional terms, but its long silences and dramatic timbres still convey a sense of vastness. Van Raat, a champion of new music, plays with sensitivity and appropriate simplicity in the later works and has no trouble making the virtuosic sonatinas sparkle. JoAnn Falletta expertly leads Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic in the spare acompanhamento in Lamentate. Naxos' sound is clean, present, and realistic. Stephen Eddins

Arvo Pärt’s piano works range from his first public statement as a composer, the Zwei Sonatinen, to his latest, the life affirming miniature Für Anna Maria. Moving away from his 1960s atonal language, Pärt found an essence of truth in music embodied in the simple lines of Für Alina. Lamentate is a vast monument which the composer has described as a lament ‘not for the dead, but for the living’. Multi award-winning pianist Ralph van Raat has been praised for his ‘sensitive and technically refined’ playing of Hans Otte’s Book of Sounds (8.572444) (MusicWeb International). naxos
Arvo Pärt (b. 1935)
1-2    Zwei Sonatinen fur Klavier, Op.1, Nr.1 (1958-9) 6:29
3-5    Zwei Sonatinen fur Klavier, Op.1, Nr.2 (1958-9) 5:42
6-9    Partita, Op. 2 (1958) 7:07
10-17    Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka (1977) 6:39
18-27    Lamentate: Homage to Anish Kapoor and his Scultpure 'Marsyas',
for piano and orchestra (2002) 35:29
Credits :
Conductor – JoAnn Falletta (tracks: 18 to 27)
Orchestra – Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic (tracks: 18 to 27)
Piano – Ralph van Raat