The Best of Arvo Pärt

This is the cd I listened to most frequently while I was pregnant. I know that the popular choice is pan pipes or that awful waterfall, tinkly spiritual stuff, but nothing could compare to the calm that fell across myself and my bump when I listened to Arvo Part's Tabula Rasa. Part was born in Estonia (I'm not quite sure when),and grew up in Talinn under the severe influence of the Soviet Union. He didn't have a particularly religious background, yet when he started writing music, his desire was to write 'prayers'. That's not necessarily prayers in a literal sense, more the music that would be a prayer in its calmness, ...  Read the complete review

Arvo Part is quickly becoming a household name for what has been dubbed his 'holy minmalism.' Whilst it is nice that he is becoming well known, the press's eagerness to pigeonhole what he does is likely to do him more harm than good. Perhaps his music uses an economy of means, but it has nothing in common with mainstream Minimalism, and very little common ground with Tavener, Gorecki, Vasks and Kanchelis, who are usually associated with him. Part in fact began his career as a composer of avant-garde Collage and Serial music, of the type which nowadays gets called 'Squeaky-Gate' music. There is nothing remarkable about the works written in ...  Read the complete review