EARLY MUSIC

ESTONIAN PHILHARMONIC CHAMBER CHOIR
CHRISTOPHER BOWERS-BROADBENT (ORGAN)
CONDUCTOR – PAUL HILLIER

VIDEO AND SOUND – ESTONIAN PUBLIC BROADCASTING
PRODUCER – HEIDI PRUULI
DIRECTOR – ÜLLE ÕUN
SOUND ENGINEER  – ENN LAIDRE
LIGHT DESIGNER – JÜRI HINDREMÄE
MONTAGE – KALLE KÄÄRIK

ARVO PÄRT
AN DEN WASSERN

PEROTINUS
SEDERUNT PRINCIPLES I

ARVO PÄRT
MODUS (musical quotation) by Paul Hillier

ARVO PÄRT
TE DEUM (excerpt)

GREGORIAN CHANT
BEATA VISCERA anonymus, England, 14th century

ARVO PÄRT
LITTLEMORE TRACTUS (for mixed choir and organ)

TOMÁS LUIS DE VICTORIA
O MAGNUM MYSTERIUM

ARVO PÄRT
NUNC DIMITTIS

"Today, Arvo Pärt’s music is famous around the world. It sound has a haunting quality and seems, on the surface anyway, to be quite simple, although it is capable of steering complex emotions. It’s mostly written for voices singing sacred words, sometimes with instrumental accompaniment and sometimes unaccompanied or a cappella. But it wasn’t always like this..."

"His earliest works, written almost exclusively for instruments (no voices at all), were full of passionate intensity, angst and despair almost beyond belief. And this came to a crisis around the year 1968. The year, when students were demonstrating wide across Europe, the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague and the Vietnam war was escalating. In this year Pärt wrote a work called “Credo”, in which he deconstructed a prelude by Bach, using serial techniques. And after that piece was performed, he felled silent, he stopped composing for several years. And during that period, rejecting completely the style he had been writing in, he made a study of Gregorian chant and pieces of medieval and renaissance music. And he also became fascinated of the sound of bells. Slowly he pieced together the outlines of a new way of writing. It was as if he had an accident and had to learn how to walk again as a composer. And then, in 1976, came the first pieces in a completely new style – the style in which he has been writing ever since.”

Paul Hillier

This concert program indicates to the connections between early music and Arvo Pärt's vocal compositions. Paul Hillier demostrates and introduces the works and composing style of Arvo Pärt.