Surprises are in store here for anyone expecting the contemplative style for which Arvo Pärt is best known. The composer's identity is still recognizable -- events happen deliberately, in a slow, wave-like procession. But all three works on the disc are marked by dramatic contrasts rather than Pärt's usual resounding stasis. There's nothing minimalist about Como cierva sedienta at all. This half-hour work for women's chorus, soprano, and orchestra, Pärt's first work in Spanish, conflates the texts of Psalms 42 and 43, beginning with a much-simplified modern Spanish translation of the line generally rendered in English as "As the hart panteth after the water brooks." The text is cast in a complex form; there are five sections, several of them framed by instrumental interludes, and the text prayerfully returns three times to the verse beginning "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" In tonality and manner, the work evokes both Britten's choral music and even Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, but it's a bit grander than either, with harps and big climaxes. Likewise unexpected are the two short works included on the album. The all-instrumental title work Orient & Occident is a positively Ivesian piece that opposes an Indian-sounding Eastern melody to Western chordal textures. The two layers clash, tentatively meet, go their separate ways, and finally reach a tense yet solid coexistence. Composed in 2000, it marks a fascinating departure for Pärt, and to these ears it's a real gem. The opening Wallfahrtslied (1984) offers another binary concept: a literally monotone men's vocal chorus representing the death that claimed a friend of the composer is surrounded by active strings symbolizing the living world. The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir have the right sheen for Pärt and ECM's sound is, as usual, exemplary.
James Manheim
