Vasks: Cantus ad Pacem

Albumbeschreibung

Talivaldis Deksnis devotes this recital to the organ music of his fellow Latvian, composer Peteris Vasks. Vasks is frequently grouped with the composers referred to as "holy minimalists" -- Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki, John Tavener, and Giya Kancheli -- and his work does bear some resemblance to that of Górecki and Kancheli in its prevailing hushed mood, use of repetitive patterns, and essentially tonal harmony. Vasks sometimes departs from the paradigm; he even describes one of these works, Canto di forza, written in 2005, as traditionally diatonic, and the 1988 Musica seria is intensely chromatic and rhythmically unsettled. What unites these works as clearly the product of a single imagination is the sense of mysterious stillness that breaks through, at least sporadically, in each of them. In Musica seria, the most dramatically varied piece, that quietness, when it finally appears, is especially potent in its impact. Other works, like Viatore (2002), are more consistently meditative and more conventionally minimalist in their gently ecstatic serenity. Te Deum (1991) is least effective in its attempts at contrapuntal complexity, but is fully convincing when the composer allows the blissed-out stillness, of which he's a master, take over and just flood the listener with warmth. It's possible to hear subtle influences of Messiaen, not only in the unearthly timelessness that characterizes sections of these pieces, but in some sonorities, and even the occasional use of birdsong. Deksnis, for whom several of the works were written, plays them with commitment and understanding. Four of the five works were recorded in the Riga cathedral; its organ is wonderfully colorful and the sound is clean and clear, with just enough resonance.

© TiVo