Music Review: Naxos Records' Sonic Rebellion

Klaus Heymann and the Hong Kong-based Naxos Records revolutionized the recording and marketing of classical music by using superb but little known musicians to perform both the standard and not so standard repertoire. This enabled the label to sell their CDs for a quarter of what the major labels were expecting. It has been in the not-so-standard repertoire that the label has been blazing a trail in the 21st Century.

Sonic Rebellion: Alternative Classical Collection (Naxos 8570760) showcases the label's efforts in documenting the works of living composers. This is not your parents' classical music. Included on this disc are Krszystof Penderecki, Terry Riley, Hans Werner Henze; George Crumb, John Cage, Arvo Pärt, and Philip Glass.

Naxos has chosen these last two composers for box sets of their available recordings. They are indeed giants in modern classical music. Added to the boxes is the aforementioned Sonic Rebellion to whet the appetite of would-be modern classical enthusiasts. While this is not music for the faint of heart, it is music not to be missed and these two reasonable priced boxes are splendid introductions to Pärt and Glass, two of the most accessible composers living.

Arvo Pärt
The Silence of Being: The Music of Arvo Part
Hungarian State Opera Orchestra, Tamas Benedek; Ulster Orchestra, Takuo Yuasa; Tonus Peregrinus, Antony Pitts; Elora Festival Singers and Orchestra, Noel Edison
Naxos
2008

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935), with Englishman Sir John Tavener (b. 1944), is widely considered the foremost composer of Eastern Orthodox choral and liturgical music. To label Part merely a choral composer is to sell him short. His instrumental music is essential and compelling.

Pärt's early compositions revealed a stolid neo-classical style influenced by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Bartók. Pärt went on to compose using Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique and serialism, ultimately being censored by the Soviet establishment. During this period, Pärt studied choral music from the 14th to 16th centuries. It was this study that would lead to Pärt's transformation into the unique composer he was to become.

This early European polyphony infused Pärt's composition. He carefully studies early music, particularly the roots of western music. Pärt's paid closest attention to the evolution plainsong, Gregorian chant, and the ultimate emergence of Renaissance polyphony. The music that resulted employed Pärt's compositional method employing tintinnabuli. Resulting compositions included Fratres, Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten, and Tabula Rasa, all of which are represented in the Naxos box collection of Pärt's work, The Silence of Being: The Music of Arvo Pärt.

Article Author: C. Michael Bailey

Arkansas son C. Michael Bailey has been in hiding since he revealed his family's abolitionist position prior to the War Between the States. He is a Senior Reviewer for All About Jazz and publisher of the webblog Kultur. Michael’s day job is spent as a clinical data analyst.
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