The brief opening piece for chorus on this new release, "Da Pacem Domine," is based on a 9th century Gregorian work and has the usual, familiar–and very beautiful–Pärt-ian characteristics: a soft, endless stream of easy tritones and harmonies that make this plea for peace immensely moving. The major work, Lamentate, is scored for large orchestra and solo piano–a very unusual combination for Pärt. Even his fans will be surprised. In ten brief sections, it begins with a quiet drum roll, immediately followed by horn calls. There are forte explosions for full orchestra and piano, with heavy percussion. At times the only thing we hear is a hushed piano part with strings supporting very quietly. The effect is dark yet alluring. It ends peacefully. This is another stunning CD of Pärt's music for his fans–old and new.

‘Piano Icons For The 21st Century’ is an exceptionally performed collection of contemporary piano works by Pärt, Janáček, Sculthorpe and Mompou, plus the world premiere recording of John Tavener's Ypakoë. Piano Icons For The 21st Century was widely acclaimed upon its release and named a Gramophone ‘Critics' Choice': 'my disc of 2000 is without hesitation Elena Riu's extraordinarily fine CD.' John Tavener was inspired to write his first major solo work for piano in over twenty years after hearing Elena play. She premiered Ypakoë, a series of meditations on the death of Jesus, at the City of London Festival. The programme also includes Janacek's In The Mist, an intensely personal and darkly hued cycle, plus an intriguing collection of miniatures by three composers who, in her view, are on a similar wavelength: Peter Sculthorpe, the late Catalan composer Federico Mompou, and Arvo Pärt.

There's perhaps a touch of irony in the title of Dutch pianist and composer Jeroen van Veen's box set Minimal Piano Collection because at nine discs, it's a pretty massive collection. The program booklet notes that he recorded the entire set, which includes more than ten hours of music, in only six days, an astounding feat. In the program notes, van Veen offers a remarkably clear and concise history of minimalism in music. He defines it broadly enough (following the lead of composer and critic Tom Johnson) to include works by Friedrich Nietzsche and Satie. Philip Glass is the composer most widely represented, with three of the set's nine CDs devoted to his music originally for piano, as well as transcriptions from his film scores and operas. Two discs are given to van Veen's mammoth 24 Préludes, organized according to the framework of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Other composers range from the very well known, such as Michael Nyman, John Adams, Terry Riley, Arvo Pärt, and John Cage, to the familiar-to-specialists, like Tom Johnson, Wim Mertens, and Jacob ter Veldhuis, to those little-known to American audiences, like Klaas de Vries, Simeon ten Holt, John Borstlap, Yann Tiersen, and Carlos Micháns.

This collection of recordings illuminates two different sides of violinist Tasmin Little’s accomplished playing. While the Brahms and Sibelius Concertos are a testament to her technical skill and breadth of expression, the Pärt works display a more pared-back approach, making full use of Little’s pure and resonant tone.

The New Seasons referred to in the title here are the so-called American Four Seasons, the Violin Concerto No. 2 of Philip Glass, which has even less of a connection to Vivaldi's model than do Astor Piazzolla's Buenos Aires Four Seasons and other works that take Vivaldi as a point of reference. The work is in eight sections, but which ones are supposed to represent which season is left up to the listener. It's really a typical but unusually effective example of late-period Glass, with the composer's usual textures intact but lots of harmonic motion. Part of the interest here lies in hearing Latvian violinist and conductor Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica, long champions of minimalism's Baltic branch, tackle a work by one of the leaders of Western minimalism. The American Four Seasons get a treatment that's a bit rougher than usual, but then Kremer turns around (after a Pärt girls' choir interlude) and delivers pristinely smooth, glassy textures in Giya Kancheli's Ex contrario. The program closes with a fascinating little melody by Japanese rock musician and film composer Shigeru Umebayashi, a daring and effective choice.

This CD is one of two Warner Classics recordings taped live during a series of concerts presented by the world renowned Chamber Orchestra of Europe during Easter Week 2003. The title for the concert series, presented in London, was Passions and Diversions as the works relate to different aspects of reflection and inspiration. In this program, Britten and Stokowski interpret works by Purcell in their own idioms; Britten draws on his English musical roots to inspire an original work, Lachrymae and Britten himself is the source of inspiration in Pärt’s Cantus. In the case of the Vaughan Williams, Tippett and Walton works, the inspirations are other composers and literature. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe has been described in The Financial Times as “the best orchestra in Europe.” The COE was founded in 1981 and has a membership of 50 musicians from 15 countries who perform together mainly in continental Europe and occasionally in the US and Japan. Since its inception, it has appeared with the world’s leading conductors and soloists, and its recordings have consistently won the highest praise and international prizes, including three Gramophone “Record of the Year” awards.

Just 26 years old, Nicola Benedetti has been making chart-topping recordings for 10 years. This album celebrates the best of those recordings, and her other successes – from winning the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 2004, to her 2012 best-selling album ‘The Silver Violin’, the highest charting classical instrumental album in the UK of the last two decades. A collection of great violin music – from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending to the Tchaikovsky and Bruch violin concertos and Arvo Part’s Spiegel Im Spiegel. Featuring brand new recordings – Brahms’ invigorating Hungarian Dance no. 5, Monti’s ever-popular Czardas, and Chopin’s emotional Nocturne in C# minor. The album includes Nicola performing with leading orchestras and conductors, as well as some of her favorite chamber players. This album showcases the incredible range of Nicola’s playing and demonstrates her wide appeal. In January 2013 Nicola was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to music and charity.

Award-winning violinist Daniel Hope presents an eclectic and accessible mix of neo-Baroque, minimalist and soundtrack favourites, including works and arrangements by contemporary masters like Ludovico Einaudi, Arvo Pärt, Karl Jenkins, Max Richter, Gabriel Prokofiev, Alex Baranowski and many more. “Spheres” features a curated collection of repertoire celebrating the idea, first brought forward by Pythagoras, that planetary movement creates its own kind of music, bringing beauty, harmony and simplicity to our complex solar system. This idea has fascinated philosophers, musicians, and mathematicians for centuries. Featured as main soloist on Max Richter’s acclaimed “Vivaldi Recomposed”, Hope is known for an effortless classical sound and intriguing approach to repertoire. Music of reflection, contemplation and relaxation.

A much-admired contemporary, living composer whose popularity among a wide cross-section of music devotees and casual listeners transcends genre barriers. This new double-disc set of the complete piano music encompasses works composed over a 50 year span. Jeroen Van Veen is a preeminent and critically-favored Minimalist advocate and multi-dimensional artist with a noteworthy backlist of Brilliant Classic releases to his credit with more to come. Booklet notes written by Jeroen Van Veen.

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is almost exclusively associated with his later works. Born in 1935, his early music was very much ‘avant-garde’ in style. In the 1970s, he increasingly found his inspiration in medieval religious music, both western and eastern European. This first transpired in his Für Alina for piano. It features the telling low tempo and two layer structure which were to become trademarks of his later works.

The symphonies of Arvo Pärt will surprise anyone familiar with his contemplative, mature style. Pärt began life as a member of the Eastern European modern school, not so far removed from contemporaries such as Penderecki and Górecki. His three symphonies show his gradual renunciation of the more radical aspects of his musical syntax, a return to emotional directness, and the beginnings of that otherworldly quality that has become the outstanding feature of his later work. Not all listeners have traveled the path with him, some finding his recent music tedious and pretentious rather than spiritual, and these three relatively early symphonies really do add a welcome depth and roundness of profile to a composer who can all too easily seem one-dimensional. It's important to keep in mind that, unlike so many members of today's pseudospiritual school of composers (England's John Tavener being the prime example), Pärt is a real composer operating even in the most mystical musings. Järvi deserves real credit for calling attention to this fact in such a powerful way.

Over a period of five years, Swiss directors Norbert Wiedmer and Peter Guyer documented the activity of legendary producer Manfred Eicher, the founder and driving force behind ECM Records, whose advocacy of progressive jazz and of classical composers like Arvo Pärt, Meredith Monk, Valentin Silvestrov, and György Kurtág changed the landscape of contemporary music in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The film Sounds and Silence: Travels with Manfred Eicher was released in 2009 and this 2011 soundtrack album is made up largely of tracks taken from previously released ECM albums that Eicher produced, some from as early as 1980. Most of the pieces are low-key and understated and feature chamber ensembles, although there are several piano tracks and several featuring orchestra or chorus. The album has a mix of selections from ECM's classical and jazz repertoire, and from the label's specialty, the many pieces that lie somewhere in between the two.

A collection of musical gems by great contemporary composers of the minimalist and postminimalist trend. Music of Steve Reich (Vermont Counterpoint, New York Counterpoint - first recording of the saxophone version), Arvo Pärt (Pari Intervallo), Hans Otte (Eins), Ludovico Einaudi (Quattro Passi), Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (For you Ann Lill, Op.58), skilfully interpreted by Andrea Ceccomori and Goffredo Degli Esposti on the flutes, Paul Wehage on the saxophones, Cecilia Chailly on harp and Fabrizio Ottaviucci on piano.

This is the first ever recording of Arvo Pärt’s wonderful vocal music performed by a boys’ choir. The year of release of this album is also the year when the Estonian composer celebrates his eightieth birthday. More than four decades ago, the musician Arvo Pärt fell silent, and went into retreat for eight years. His silence gave rise to a new kind of music, which has gained him international fame. “I have discovered that it is enough if a single note is beautifully played,” Pärt once said. Based on his study of the cathedrals of sound of the Renaissance or even earlier periods, the composer has developed a very personal and original style: music inspired by spirituality, striving to accomplish the ideal of perfect simplicity, of laying bare the pure essence. An everlasting stopping and pausing: eternity. At the same time a continuous flowing and being carried away: the transitory nature of time.

"This compact disc presents all the studio recordings that remain from a time when, as a twenty-five year old champion of the avant-garde, I had to seek for every possible occasion of playing the new works of our composers. In those days, they were hounded and ripped apart by ideological critics; now they are recognized as the masters of new music. Audiences today need to realize with how much excitement and trust people discovered and took over the new currents seeping in from Europe through the Iron Curtain. These works represent and symbolize a marvelous epoch of friendship, a time when we came to know new horizons and discovered ourselves in the Soviet Union's huge, heterogeneous spaces." (Alexei Lubimov. May 2003)