Arvo Pärt's justly popular 'Tabula Rasa' boasts the style by which we have come to know this appealingly distinctive Estonian composer. He arrived at this later style, however, only in the late 1970s, and his path leading to that point is strewn with fascinating compositions, two of which are included here. Marking his departure from strict serialism, the 1964 'Collage über BACH' takes its inspiration from Baroque forms while nodding to tonality. The entire piece has a somber cast, from the opening "Toccata" movement's angular edginess (reminiscent of Bernard Hermann's music for 'Psycho') to the lovely "Sarabande" that turns darkly discordant (which features a very fine unnamed oboe soloist) to the agitated grimness of the closing "Ricercare." If 'Collage' reminds one of a Hitchcock film, then Pärt's Symphony No. 3 (1971), in its neo-Romantic spin on both (and often alternately) medieval and Renaissance polyphony, sounds like a soundtrack for a film on an Arthurian legend. The most effective piece is, indeed, 'Tabula Rasa' in which Pärt brilliantly and idiosyncratically pays homage to Vivaldi by locating the seeds of his own minimalist aesthetic in Baroque figurations and suspension-resolutions.
