WQXR Live Broadcast of Arvo Pärt's Kanon Pokajanen

One composer who has generated a considerable amount of interest recently is the Estonian Arvo Pärt.  Once known primarily through his association with the late Alfred Schnittke, Pärt has emerged in his own right as a leading figure in contemporary music.  According to Wikipedia, which used The Bachtrack Stats as its source, "As of 2013, Pärt has been the most performed contemporary composer in the world for three years in a row."  That's quite an impressive statistic.

I had heard Pärt's music earlier this year when the Juilliard Focus program gave the world premiere of a revised version of La Sindone, originally performed at the Turin Cathedral while that city hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics.  Other works by Pärt were performed on subsequent evenings.  These included Fratres (1979/1989), For Alina (1976) and My Heart's in the Highlands (2000).  I found Pärt's music, whose style the composer himself has described as tintinnabuli (i.e., the ringing of bells), extremely engrossing and I can well understand the popularity he now enjoys.

Yesterday evening, WQXR presented a live broadcast from the Met Museum of Pärt's 1997 choral work Kanon Pokajanen that had originally been written to commemorate the 750th anniversary of the Cologne Cathedral.  Translated as Canon of Repentance, it was expertly performed by the ensemble and conductor to whom it had been dedicated, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under the direction of Tõnu Kaljuste.  Although much of Pärt's music contains a mystical element, this was particularly evident in the rendition of the present work which was sung a cappella in Church Slavonic as is traditional in the Eastern rite.  The text itself was taken from an eighth century Orthodox sacred writing whose roots lay deep within the Byzantine tradition.  Also evident was Pärt's extensive knowledge of plainsong and Gregorian chant, both of which he had studied extensively in the 1970's.  Though these influences are associated with Western Christianity rather than Eastern Orthodox, they served the composer quite well in this work.  Pärt wrote of the piece:

"Many years ago, when I first became involved in the tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church, I came across a text that made a profound impression on me although I cannot have understood it at the time. It was the Canon of Repentance. 

"Since then I have often returned these verses, slowly and arduously seeking to unfold their meaning...  I then decided to set it to music in its entirety-from beginning to end. This allowed me to stay with it, to devote myself to it; and, at the very least, its hold on me did not abate until I had finished the score."

The end result was a fascinating mixture of contemporary and liturgical music.  (Not surprisingly, it was part of the Arvo Pärt Project sponsored by St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary.)  Lasting approximately 70 minutes, it was sung flawlessly by the choir and applauded enthusiastically by the audience at the Met's Temple of Dendur, a most appropriate setting for such a work.