Tabula Rasa

In 1984, ECM brought a new sound into the musical world with the release of Arvo Pärt’s Tabula rasa, the first album on the label’s New Series imprint. Now, on the occasion of the 40th New Series anniversary, this gatefold vinyl reissue with enclosed booklet presents the record in its original guise.

The record also marked the intersection of some of the most longstanding, significant musical collaborators in the label’s history: Arvo Pärt, Gidon Kremer, and Keith Jarrett. Like many of the first generation American minimalists, he limited himself to diatonic harmonies and generated pieces by setting processes in motion, but the radical simplicity he achieved was the result of religious contemplation that was at least as, if not more, formative than his quest for a new musical aesthetic.

The result was music suffused by an unhurried, luminous serenity, and while it was distinctly contemporary, it had an archaic quality that tied it to the music of the very distant past. The three instrumental pieces recorded here (one of which appears in two versions) were among the first Pärt wrote in his newly developed style, which came to be known popularly as holy minimalism. (The composer prefers the term tintinnabulation, because in his words, "The three notes of the triad are like bells.")

Fratres, originally for chamber orchestra, is undeniably Pärt's most popular work and exists in well over a dozen versions, two of which are included here. Gidon Kremer and Keith Jarrett bring great nuance and sensitivity to the version for violin and piano. They play somewhat loosely with details of the score, but they are entirely in sync with the spirit of the piece, and it's a gripping performance. The violin part is hugely virtuosic and Kremer is breathtaking, particularly in the crystalline purity of the outrageously high harmonics that end the piece.

The arrangement of Fratres for 12 cellos is an altogether more lyrical and meditative version, and the cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra play it with gorgeous tone and depth. Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten for string orchestra and bell is at once one of the composer's most brilliantly simple and profound pieces.