ARVO PÄRT & ERKKI-SVEN TÜÜR

This exceptional concert, imbued with a profound spiritual dimension, brings together works by two of Estonia’s most important composers: Arvo Pärt and Erkki-Sven Tüür.

It also creates a dialogue between two generations. Erkki-Sven Tüür, whose refined writing can make the sound of strings shimmer like light, honours Ars Musica with a world premiere. From the internationally acclaimed Arvo Pärt, who celebrated his ninetieth birthday last year, we hear the iconic Fratres and the deeply contemplative Mein Weg, inspired by a line by the Jewish poet Edmond Jabès: “Mein Weg hat Gipfel und Wellentäler” (“My path has peaks and valleys.”)

Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles invites us to turn our gaze towards what lies beyond us, exploring themes of connection, memory, and remembrance. In Pärt’s serene and luminous Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, sound seems to descend from the heavens in tribute to Britten. It finds an echo in Tüür’s The Path and the Traces, composed in Crete as an homage to Pärt at a time when Tüür himself was mourning the loss of his father.