Estonian Fest Orch, Oct 2025

Francesca and I heard the Estonian Festival Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir at Carnegie Hall on October 23, 2025. They were conducted by Paavo Järvi in an all Arvo Pärt program. I'd sung a few pieces of his and loved the texture of the writing and his distinctive voice as a composer, I was curious to hear more.

*Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten* (1977, revised in 1980) - - 6 minutes

Bell and strings

I loved this piece - - it had an amorphous rhythm but constant sense of forward movement. It started so quiet you could barely hear it. The piece was constructed around a downward scale in A minor. It was powerful and accessible in the best sense of the word. You could grab onto the piece with both hands.

*Perpetuum mobile* (1963) - - 6 minutes

Typical chamber orchestra (winds, strings, percussion)

This piece had a similar use of overlapping rhythms used in the previous piece but since it was atonal the effect was unnerving. It was anxious-making and built up to a full shriek of terror. Not something you hear every day (and that's a good thing).

*La Sindone* (2005, revised 2022) - - 9 minutes

Trumpet, trombone, timpani, percussion, strings

"Sindone" is Italian for "shroud" and is (to quote the program notes) "a musical reflection on the theme of the Shroud of Turin." It had more variety in texture than the previous pieces, more drama, and was more engaging for me. It felt like a whole experience in itself and not just a glimpse of one.

*Adam's Lament* - - 24 minutes

Mixed choir and strings

This was a setting of a text from the late 19th or early 20th century, written in Russian or Church Slavonic (I wish the program notes were more precise), about Adam lamenting that he disappointed God and was banished from the Garden of Eden. Heavy stuff. This was Francesca's favorite piece on the program, she was blown away by the singers. They were amazing and the writing for the voices was brilliant. But the piece was too mournful for my taste, which came across as just plain boring. I fell asleep and didn't feel bad. It can be a very pleasant experience to fall asleep in a concert.

*Tabula rasa* - - 27 minutes

2 solo violins, prepared piano, strings

This was MY favorite piece, I was knocked out by it. It had a lot of alternating elements - - start and stop, activity and stillness, the full strings and the solo parts. Let me explain what a prepared piano is. It's a piano that's had something extra done to it, like screws or erasers or woodblocks inserted between the strings, making it go thump or twang or similar. You can still hear the pitch but it sounds totally different. Pärt used this technique to create a haunting, otherworldly effect, played beautifully by Nico Muhly.

The solo violin parts were played by Hans Christian Aavik and violin superstar Midori. Their playing was ravishingly beautiful, often quiet in a very high register, sometimes in octaves. The piece toggled back and forth between the string ensemble doing something sort of gently rocking and then the soloists doing something transcendent. We went between those poles for a while, with variations in the register and texture to keep it interesting. I was getting used to that pattern when suddenly the piece did a sharp right turn and the ensemble played an unexpected chord and the solo violins each started sawing away like they were having a seizure. I'm sure the piano was doing something wacky as well but I didn't make a note of it. The movement ended with a big finish. A big chunk of the (dopey) audience started applauding but it was just the end of the first movement. You could tell the conductor was disappointed.

The second movement had ghostly harmonies from the ensemble, the two solo violins doodling over that, and the piano playing rippling odd sounds. No one could write this music but Arvo Pärt.

There were three more short pieces on the program but we left. Francesca had an early morning ahead of her and I wanted to spend more time with her on our trip home. Plus I wanted the aura of that last piece to stick with me, I didn't want something else to break the spell.