Arvo Part
Tractus
(ECM)
★★★★★

The label Edition of Contemporary Music (ECM) began life in 1969, and is the life work of founder and producer Manfred Eicher. Its loyalties remain rooted in the European avant-garde and notions of impressionism and spirituality. 

Estonian composer Arvo Part has long been part of the label’s success. The title of his latest album, recorded by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, refers to a series of theological writings by the English cardinal and saint John Henry Newman called Tracts for the Times in 1843. Part of the composer’s musical inspiration is the music of the Western Middle Ages and the Renaissance. 

He also uses a formula called the tintinnabuli technique, referencing a slow tempo, minimal approach emphasising a tonic triad or cluster set of three notes. The composer says: “This orderly system penetrates us and our subconscious. One does not realise it, but one accepts it. And it creates a kind of new state, a new order within us.” His approach is also resolutely text-centred. 

For the album conductor Tonu Kaljuste has chosen Part’s works written over the last two decades. The album opens up with Littlemore Tractus. A seven-minute work full of slow-tempo strings, haunting and atmospheric choral work, harp and bell. The pitch and tempo rises towards the end of the piece, pulsing, like fading starlight. 

On Greater Antiphons atmospheres get deeper and more rhythmic. Stabs of optimistic strings combine into new forces, in places referencing the influence of Polish composer Henryk Gorecki. 

For L’abbe Agathon the orchestra is joined by the gifted Soprano Maria Listra. Her restless and bewitching melodies hang over low cello and bass, building to a dramatic climax. The concluding track Vater Unser, a version of the Lord’s Prayer, leads with piano that aids the strings and choral overdrive. 

Recorded at the Methodist Church, Tallinn, in September 2022, a warm acoustic glow helps define the atmosphere.