Pärtly good
Arvo Pärt: 4 symphonies (Chandos)
★★★★/★★
Brahms wrote his four symphonies in one style, each of them identifiable from the opening, reassuring phrase. The Estonian Arvo Pärt utilised three styles, maybe four. Under Russian occupation, he composed the first two for private consumption, writing against the rules of the regime and risking his job as a radio engineer to do so. None is very long.
The first, dated 1963, is serial in its use of Arnold Schoenberg’s 12-note rows but is neither dogmatic nor undramatic. The nearest equivalent is the black-noise music developed by Krzysztof Pendeecki around the same time. Pärt, unlike the Pole, has no specific point to make, just a general dissonance at the state of the world. But his ideas are the more powerful for being less precisely articulated.
The second symphony, three years later, is still serial, though playful — cheeky, even, in its pizzicato mockery of authority. The dominant influence here are two Hungarians, Bartok and Ligeti, with their dark things that go plink in the night. Alban Berg’s Lulu slinks into the closing bars. There is a powerful period feel about both symphonies, but the atmosphere is fascinating and, beneath the surface, emotions surge.
The third symphony (1971) drew on Pärt’s newfound religious fervour. Its language bridges medieval church monodies and modern Californian minimalism and the effect is at once meditative and aspirational, a yearning for spiritual freedom. The melodism is, at times, almost Brahmsian and the symphony is frequently performed.
The fourth symphony, commissioned by Los Angeles for its new Walt Disney Hall, employs the same dialectics but to dreary effect, a wash of strings subsiding into new-age aural mush, decorated with marimba and tubular bells. It is a symphonic meringue, far too sweet and full of nothingness. The Icelandic Symphony give imposing account under conductor Eva Ollikainen, matching and challenging the early recordings under Neeme Järvi, but unable to save the final symphony from its good intentions. All four symphonies, laid end to end, last just three-quarters of an hour.
