CD-Charts Position 1
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Pärt: Te Deum

from: ECM New Series

Release Date October 04, 1993
Hypnotic; healing are not terms I'd usually use in a review of a piece of music - too much like crystal gazing (Be Bop Deluxe - great track!), copper bracelets & ley lines - airy-fairy stuff that I usually ignore with a sneer but Pärt's music has an effect that does indeed induce (at least in me) feelings of peace and warm fuzziness. I first heard this in a TV documentary about the piece itself. A nice little doco – watch it if you can catch it. All the major protagonists were there on the screen except the composer who seems a reserved quiet person who shuns too much publicity – good for him! The conductor, Tõnu Kaljuste, has worked extensively with Arvo Pärt and this shows in his ability to bring out ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 2
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Pärt: Alina

from: ECM New Series

Release Date October 25, 1999
If someone was to ask me to go through my music collection and pick out the perfect piece of music, Alina would be it. Neither offensive nor boring or shallow, it's uncomplicated with thought provoking phrasing, holding one's attention time after time without growing tiring. Yes, the tracks are slightly repetitive and the CD only has 2 tracks (albeit varied), but believe me you could stick your player on repeat and have this running for a couple of hours without wanting to change it.

What is interesting is that everyone who has heard this CD playing has complemented the music and asked for the details. It's a winner with my wife, who despises at least 90% of my music taste. It even manages to calm my baby down.

CD-Charts Position 3
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Pärt - Da Pacem

from: Harmonia Mundi

Release Date September 04, 2006
I'm not a particular connoisseur of classical music, but have started to dip my toe in the water with purchases by some of the 'modern' composers (John Adams, Steve Reich, Phillip Glass). I bought a particularly fine compilation ('Silencio') containing works by Arvo Part and, following a five-star review in the Guardian, decided to buy 'Da Pacem'.

And it's fabulous. This is very gentle, melodic choral music which (for me, anyway) relaxes and refreshes. Friends who have also heard it have asked, "what is this lovely music?" Just as a matter of interest, at the end of 2006, I did a search on my iPod of the music that I had been listening to most throughout the year. The Flaming Lips and The Divine Comedy were up there, but by far and away ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 4
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Arvo Part - Arbos

by: Arvo Part, Hilliard Ensemble, Gidon Kremer, Thomas Demenga

Release Date July 01, 1988
I bought this soon after I "found" the works of Arvo Part during the St Albans International Organ Festival - in particular De Profundis.

Some is a little repetitive, but overall it is a stunning collection of his work, truly reflecting his Estonian origins.
Listen on your own and become wrapped in this amazing music.

CD-Charts Position 5
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The Best of Arvo Pärt

from: EMI Classics

Release Date May 03, 2004
These are deeply felt and captivating performances of Pärt's best-known works. My favourite Spiegel im Spiegel is played a bit too fast, but Tasmin Little's playing is wonderfully refined and imaginative, if not so deep as Shaham's accliamed version.

CD-Charts Position 6
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Pärt: Litany

from: ECM New Series

Release Date August 19, 1996
If you are able to open your mind, this is a beautiful recording of new music into a new era.

CD-Charts Position 7
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Pärt: Tabula Rasa

from: ECM New Series

Release Date July 01, 1988
Arvo Part's "Tabula Rasa" is an absolutely astonishing piece of music. It is part prayer, a part meditation and a part love letter, burning with passion and sufferring. It is at the same time filled with yearning and longing for a higher state of being and every listening puts my mind in a very unique, spiritual and meditative state. I can't recommend this CD more, for the perfromances on it are all absolutely astounding, especially the live recording of the title track, with its sounds of the audience and the resonances from the hall where it was recorded. Its like a piece of music made in heaven and completely transcends our normal mundane experiences........

CD-Charts Position 8
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Pärt: Kanon pokajanen

from: ECM New Series

Release Date April 06, 1998

This Album is in my opinion a must for any Classical Music lover. To review this album is a difficult thing to do. All I can say is that one must listen to this piece and just immerse yourself into another world.

Without trying to be to profound, it is almost like Arvo Part has been chosen as an instrument from somewhere else to deliver such beauty. The last track on this double CD is without doubt the most inspirational piece of music that I have ever listened to.

Fans of Philip Glass and Steve Reich will "Get" this. Thank you Arvo Part.

CD-Charts Position 9
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Pärt - Triodion

from: Hyperion

Release Date September 01, 2003
If you could wear out a CD track, then I've probably done it with "My heart's in the Highlands". I've never heard a piece of music which can get right inside your very fibres before. It holds you - I have to stop whatever I'm doing to listen. It ranks alongside Peter Pears singing the Pleiades aria from Peter Grimes.

The rest of the album has the right mix of Part's compositions,opening with the dance-like "Dopo la vittoria". Who would have thought that a genealogy could enthrall a listener? Polyphony sing with such feeling and emotion.

Just buy it.

CD-Charts Position 10
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Pärt : Triodin - Ode VII (Memento) - I Am The True Vine - Dopo la Vittoria

from: Naxos

Release Date September 04, 2006
It really is extraordinary these days for the music of a living composer to have multiple recordings and for those recordings to become best-sellers, but that is precisely what has happened with the music of Arvo Pärt, the 71-year-old Estonian composer whose choral music on sacred texts has become wildly popular, even among non-classical-music fans. There is something ethereally attractive about the music. It helps that it is unfailingly tonal, has a serenity that is sorely needed in these troubled days, and that it has attracted performances by such marvelous groups as the Elora Festival Singers on the present disc. The Elora singers are surely one of the best professional choral groups in North American, not to say the world. It is made up of singers drawn from the ... Read More: