Benjamin Hudson, Sebastian Klinger, Jurgen Kruse - Arvo Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel (2007)

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is almost exclusively associated with his later works. Born in 1935, his early music was very much ‘avant-garde’ in style. In the 1970s, he increasingly found his inspiration in medieval religious music, both western and eastern European. This first transpired in his Für Alina for piano. It features the telling low tempo and two layer structure which were to become trademarks of his later works. Pärt further extended his so-called tintinnabuli (bell) style in small-scale pieces like the different versions of ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ and ‘Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka’, although this last piece has ‘classical’ features as well. This CD shows an aspect of Arvo Pärt which is seldom heard: his small-scale chamber music works. As such this recording is a valuable addition to the material already available on the market.