Saturday 28 January, 2012

Arvo Pärt, Piano Music (Naxos)

 FIVE/FIVE

 Verdict “Brilliant Dutch pianist reveals Arvo Pärt to be much more than a New Age guru”

Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat is determined to convert the world — or at least those of us who explore his extensive catalogue of Naxos CDs — to what he describes as “the classical music of today”.

The man himself fell under the spell of Schoenberg and Webern in his mid-teens; now, at 43, he can be proud of his many definitive interpretations of such composers as John Adams, John Taverner, Gavin Bryars and, on his latest release, Arvo Part.

The new album includes Pärt’s solo piano music, but also brings in the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic under JoAnne Falleta for the 2002 salute to the sculptor Anish Kapoor. In doing so, the disc spans almost a half-century of the Estonian’s music.

If you have an inbuilt resistance to Pärt the New Age Guru, fear not – his hardcore chill-out ‘70s minimalist accounts for only a fifth of the CD.

And even here, the translucent resonances of the Variations zur Gesundung von Arinuschka are positively hypnotic; in Fur Aline the radical simplicity of the notes is cleverly coloured by the shadowy sounds of the instrument’s mechanical workings.

Only the minute-long Für Anna Marisa comes across as a little too cute for its own good, dipping perilously into easy-note Richard Clayderman territory. But, even here, Raat’s humour and wafting rubatos lift it it clear of any such tainting.

Two 1950s Sonatinas and a Partita show Pärt can drive a bustling Toccata in the best Hindemith manner. As well, there are slow movements which Raat’s expressive pianism invests with the poignancy of a Mozart Adagio.

The 35-minute Lamentate: Homage to Anish Kapoor and his sculptural Marsyas is a piano concerto in all but name, a work of almost theatrical drama, in keeping with the issues of mortality that Kapoor’s work addresses.

An often thunderous first movement capitulates in a crescendo worthy of the Beatles’ A Day in the Life; within minutes, Baroque patternings shoot through Brahmsian textures.

Balancing such bold style-jousting are moments of crystalline near-silence as these superlative musicians give us a contemporary concerto that cries out to be heard in our concert halls.