Marshalling orchestral and choral forces under the direction of Tõnu Kaljuste, this new Arvo Pärt album, produced by Manfred Eicher and realized, like all Pärt’s ECM discs, with the composer’s participation, is a major event. Sacred music predominates, by turns monumentally powerful and tenderly fragile. Compositions featured, in premiere recordings made in Tallinn’s Niguliste Church, are: Adam’s Lament for choir and string orchestra; Beatus Petronius for two choirs, eight woodwind instruments, tubular bells and string orchestra; Salve Regina for choir, celesta and string orchestra; Statuit ei Dominus for two choirs, woodwinds and string orchestra; Alleluia-Tropus for choir and string orchestra; L'Abbé Agathon for soprano, baritone, female choir and string orchestra. The album concludes with two lullabies – Estonian Lullaby and Christmas Lullaby – for female choir and string orchestra. In title piece Adam’s Lament Pärt uses a poetic text by Silouan of Athos to emphasize our common heritage in the figure of Adam. “Adam is all of us who bear his legacy. This ‘Total Adam’ has been suffering and lamenting for thousands of years on Earth. Adam himself, our primal father, foresaw the human tragedy and experienced it as his personal guilt. He has suffered all human cataclysms, unto the depths of despair.”
