Arvo Pärt: Lamentate

Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra; King, Edward; Gražinyte, Onute; Pitrenas, Modestas

He was "tremendously" impressed, Arvo Pärt recalls of the moment he stood in front of Anish Kapoor's "Marsyas" for the first time at London's Tate Modern. "Suddenly I found myself in a position from where I saw my life in a different light. At that moment, I had the strong feeling that I wasn't ready to die yet," said then-67-year-old Arvo Pärt. This was the creative impulse for "Lamentate". Arvo Pärt, who celebrates his 85th birthday on September 11, 2020, seems to have often been inspired to compose by external circumstances. This is demonstrated in the selection of works for or with piano, which Onute Gražinyte chose for her first recording. "Für Alina" is particularly important to the Lithuanian pianist. In 1976, Pärt dedicated it to a young woman who had decided to leave the Soviet Union for England. "I know Alina's mother personally and can sympathize with her indescribable pain", says Onute Gražinyte. The pianist was baffled by Pärt's simple musical notation. "First you ask yourself: What is this?" Her playing reveals: She understands. "Arvo Pärt has reached the core. It's no coincidence that he dedicated many piano pieces to children and that he intended the 'Vater Unser' (Our Father) to be sung by a boy soprano. It's the ideal, the purity that children are born with and the composer has found it again."

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