Monday was a busy day for Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. He played a new piece for the pope, in the preternatural presence of the pontiff, called Vater Unser, celebrating the 60th anniversary of Benedict's ordination. But thanks to his publisher, Universal Edition, you can share in the glory of the performance from Pärt himself and Heldur Harry Pölda, an Estonian boy soprano, and hear the first two-thirds of their recording of the piece here, where you can also see the first page of the manuscript score.
Without wanting to do anything to promote the vanity of the Vatican, this is a chance to hear a minor miracle from one of the world's most famous composers. And it's a piece whose simplicity and directness fit straight into the canon of Pärt classics, with his unmistakable mixture of the severe and the beautiful.
The score and recording will be officially released soon, but in the meantime I can give you an extra bonus: a recording of Pärt playing the opening of Mozart's A Major Sonata, K331, which was made when I visited him in January this year for Radio 3. When I opened the door to his home outside Tallinn, Pärt was at the piano, playing this sonata with a tenderness, rubato, and sheer joy that radiates, I hope, even from this spontaneous recording.
Enjoy.
