Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel (LP)

An LP reissue for a critically acclaimed best-seller of the Brilliant Classics catalogue, and an ideal introduction to the unique, meditative world of Arvo Pärt.

The gentle piano arpeggios introducing Spiegel im Spiegel calm the pulse and invite the listener into a world of stillness, consolation and contemplation. Composed in 1978, it has become one of the best-known works written by Pärt in his 'tintinnabular' style which he first developed with the short piano piece Für Alina earlier in the 1970. This music reacts against both the aggressive modernism which the composer had embraced earlier in his career and against the kind of muscular style of socialist realism demanded of composers in the Soviet republics. Its tonal centredness and peaceful mood has entranced millions of listeners ever since, making Pärt one of the most individual and celebrated figures in contemporary classical music.

This album presents three different versions of Spiegel im Spiegel: the original violin-and-piano score, then subsequent arrangements for cello and piano and for piano trio. Each of them reveals different facets of the piece as it gently unfolds, making the album as a whole an hour-long meditation. Shorter intermezzi set the main work in relief: as well as Für Alina, written as a birthday gift to the composer's daughter, there is a satellite work also for solo piano, the Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka.

Finally there is the Mozart-Adagio which Part wrote for piano trio in 2005 as a tribute in memory of the Russian violinist Oleg Kagan. Neither an arrangement nor a collage, the piece takes its theme from the slow movement of Mozart's Violin Sonata K280, a youthful work, and proceeds to weave a restrained commentary around the original, as well as adding an introduction and epilogue which set the piece in the context of our own time. Like much of Pärt's music, it makes an impression out of proportion to its apparently modest ambition and dimension.