Arvo Part - Adam's Lament (ECM, 2012) [FLAC]

Arvo Pärt: Adam's Lament (ECM, 2012)

Latvian Radio Choir
Sinfonietta Riga
Vox Clamantis
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Tallinn Chamber Orchestra
Tõnu Kaljuste conductor

Recorded May 2007 and November 2011

Genre: Classical | Choral

Format: FLAC | Lossless | image + .cue

Release Date: October 15, 2012

Duration: 67:55

Marshalling orchestral and choral forces under the direction of Tõnu Kaljuste, this new Arvo Pärt album, produced by Manfred Eicher and realized, like all Pärt’s ECM discs, with the composer’s participation, is a major event. Sacred music predominates, by turns monumentally powerful and tenderly fragile. Compositions featured, in premiere recordings made in Tallinn’s Niguliste Church, are: "Adam’s Lament" for choir and string orchestra; "Beatus Petronius" for two choirs, eight woodwind instruments, tubular bells and string orchestra; "Salve Regina" for choir, celesta and string orchestra; "Statuit ei Dominus" for two choirs, woodwinds and string orchestra; "Alleluia-Tropus" for choir and string orchestra; "L'Abbé Agathon" for soprano, baritone, female choir and string orchestra. The album concludes with two lullabies – "Estonian Lullaby" and "Christmas Lullaby" – for female choir and string orchestra. In the title piece "Adam’s Lament", Pärt uses a poetic text by Silouan of Athos to emphasize our common heritage in the figure of Adam. “Adam is all of us who bear his legacy. This ‘Total Adam’ has been suffering and lamenting for thousands of years on Earth. Adam himself, our primal father, foresaw the human tragedy and experienced it as his personal guilt. He has suffered all human cataclysms, unto the depths of despair.”

The album was assembled from recordings made in several different places, by several different groups: the Latvian Radio Choir, Vox Clamantis, and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, with Estonian and Latvian orchestras. But Tõnu Kaljuste serves as conductor throughout, and each sound environment reflects the music heard; there is no sense of an anthology. Strongly recommended for Pärt fans.

Track Listing:

01. Adam’s Lament
02. Beatus Petronius
03. Salve Regina
04. Statuit ei Dominus
05. Alleluja Tropus
06. L'Abbé Agathon
07. Estonian Lullaby
08. Christmas Lullaby

For an analysis of Pärt's music, see The Cambridge Companion to Arvo Pärt: http://kat.ph/the-cambridge-companion-to-arvo-part-2012-t7320091.html