{"id":8320,"date":"2012-12-09T13:53:14","date_gmt":"2012-12-09T18:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=8320"},"modified":"2012-12-09T13:53:14","modified_gmt":"2012-12-09T18:53:14","slug":"daily-album-review-23-tonu-kaljustes-surreally-perfect-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/12\/09\/daily-album-review-23-tonu-kaljustes-surreally-perfect-part\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily album review 23: T\u00f6nu Kaljuste&#8217;s surreally perfect P\u00e4rt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/12\/lament.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8321\" title=\"2225 X\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/12\/lament.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"208\" height=\"208\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/12\/lament.jpg 208w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/12\/lament-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 208px) 100vw, 208px\" \/><\/a>A new recording of recent choral music by Estonian composer Arvo P\u00e4rt is an event made strange by singing so flawless as to seem absolutely unnatural.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Estonian conductor and P\u00e4rt expert T\u00f6nu Kaljuste assembled a combination of Estonian and Latvian forces &#8212; including the Latvian Radio Choir &#8212; for this recording, years in the making and released by Geramy&#8217;s ECM New Label.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the music in\u00a0<em>Adam&#8217;s Lament<\/em>, including the title piece, is sacred and sweeping in its musical scope, lending an epic edge to the disc.<\/p>\n<p>The album contains eight pieces in all &#8212;\u00a0<em>Adam\u2019s Lament<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Beatus Petronius<\/em>, a setting of\u00a0<em>Salve Regina<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Statuit ei Dominus<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Alleluja Tropus<\/em>,\u00a0<em>L&#8217;Abb\u00e9 Agathon<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Estonian Lullaby<\/em> and\u00a0<em>Christmas Lullaby<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The two lullabies are the most successful of the pieces. They are short, tight and possess a musical unity of purpose that makes them powerfully compelling in their quietness.<\/p>\n<p>Unusually for P\u00e4rt, <em>Adam&#8217;s Lament<\/em>, the big piece on the disc, feels like he&#8217;s trying a bit too hard, trying to be both Elgarian and minimalist at the same time &#8212; and ending up being neither. But listeners who enjoy drama for drama&#8217;s sake might really get into the music.<\/p>\n<p>The sound and balance from the choir are ridiculously perfect, so much so that I suspected that the production editors for the disc had done some serious fiddling with the dials &#8212; but then I found this video clip, which also shows that this is the sound the composer was looking for:<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/__jeStM8TAw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p>For more information on the album, click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ecmrecords.com\/Catalogue\/New_Series\/2200\/2225.php?cat=%2FLabels%2FECM+New+Series&amp;we_start=0&amp;lvredir=712\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new recording of recent choral music by Estonian composer Arvo P\u00e4rt is an event made strange by singing so flawless as to seem absolutely unnatural.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,11,36,81,51,52,53,56,70],"tags":[172,206,388,1111,6471,3337],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2012\/12\/lament.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-2ac","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8320"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8320"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}