In Principio

Product Description In Principio, was the first ECM Arvo Part disc in four years. The release celebrated the 25-year jubilee of ECM's New Series that was launched with Part's Tabula Rasa in 1984. From the Artist 25 years ago, in 1984, Arvo Pärt's Tabula rasa launched ECM's New Series. The recording indeed marked a new beginning and not only for Pärt's work, providing impulses for contemporary composition at many levels. The power of Pärt's music, moreover, underlined by the conviction of his religious feeling, struck a chord amongst listeners which continues to resonate. As fellow composer Steve Reich has observed, Pärt's music of spiritual yearning seems to fulfill a human need. In Principio, Pärt's new album, his eleventh for ECM, is both a continuation and a recording which posits fresh directions in his music, offers fresh colors. Four pieces, "In principio", "La Sindone", "Cecilia, vergine romana" and "Für Lennart in memoriam" are heard in première recordings. The album also revisits and revises important pieces. We hear a transformed "Da Pacem Domine", and a radically new version of "Mein Weg". Performers are the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, under the inspired direction of Tõnu Kaljuste, long a staunch ally and committed advocate for the composer's work. "In principio erat Verbum..." In the beginning was the word. The composition "In Principio" (2003) for mixed choir and orchestra begins with the famous line that opens the Gospel of St John, and sets its first fourteen verses. It is a work that seems chiseled out of sound itself, the hallmarks of Pärt's powerful - and timeless - musical signature immediately apparent. The work is dedicated to Kaljuste (as was "Kanon Pokajanen", a decade ago). "La Sindone" (2005) for orchestra, addresses the enigma of the Holy Shroud said to bear the imprint of Christ's face. Its history can be traced back with certainty as far as the 14th century, but beyond that history blurs into myth. Legend has it that from Jerusalem the cloth was conveyed to Aleppo, Constantinople, Cyprus, Paris, Lirey and Chambery and finally Turin, where it has been preserved since 1578. Pärt's strongly evocative composition, imaginatively inspired both by the shroud's journey and its essential mystery, was premiered in Turin in 2006 (when it was played