The choir Gloriae dei Cantores and its director, Richard K. Pugsley, have emerged as prominent American champions of Arvo Pärt's music, with a distinctive sound to match. This recording, featuring Pärt's choral arrangement of his own substantial Stabat Mater, is especially recommended to those outside North America, who may not have encountered approaches to Pärt beyond those of technically flawless Baltic choirs or ethereal British all-male cathedral groups. Here, richness of tone is prioritized over blend, and the ...
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The choir Gloriae dei Cantores and its director, Richard K. Pugsley, have emerged as prominent American champions of Arvo Pärt's music, with a distinctive sound to match. This recording, featuring Pärt's choral arrangement of his own substantial Stabat Mater, is especially recommended to those outside North America, who may not have encountered approaches to Pärt beyond those of technically flawless Baltic choirs or ethereal British all-male cathedral groups. Here, richness of tone is prioritized over blend, and the listener can hear individual voices in the 40-member choir. It brings a fresh feel to Pärt, more passionate and intimate than usual, and less abstractly "minimalist." Beyond this, the program recommends this album to listeners, for it gives the lie to the myth of an essential homogeneity in Pärt's production. There is a mysterious evocation of chant in the Salve Regina, declamatory and narrative structure in L'abbé Agathon, compact and motet-like structures in the opening English-language...
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