Arvo Pärt
Miserere

"Have mercy on me, Lord, according to your mercy / in the multitude of your kindness, erase my sin." The opening verses of Psalm 51, from a best-seller called the Bible: Arvo Pärt, born in Estonia in 1935, uses them as the incipit of his "Miserere," composed in 1989. The words, sung in Latin, are barely distinguishable, separated from one another, the pauses filled by silence or by a clarinet alternating with the voices of the soprano and tenor. Right from the start, a solemn, austere music that invites meditation.

There is something unsettling about this sacred music, in the collected and silent demeanor of this composer, who is great because he stands outside of time and creates the rules of his musical visions by himself, without ever even considering having them imposed by the trends of the moment, the fashions of the music industry, or business.

In this piece, we hear the absorbed chanting of five solo voices, the piercing timbre of the organ and that of six woodwinds, tubular bells, and timpani, and a choir of 20 elements. The environment in which this CD was recorded, the church of St. Judes in London, does the rest, weighing down every single sound with reverb. And when the 34 minutes of "Miserere" come to an end, we wonder if indeed the hypnotic time of this very slow music has passed so quickly.

Make haste slowly, according to the Latin adage, "Festina Lente", indeed, is the piece that completes this ECM-released CD: shorter, 5 minutes, of great fascination thanks to the sounds of a string orchestra and harp. It concludes with a piece inspired by a biblical episode, "Sarah Was Ninety Years Old", 25 minutes of purity and rarefaction pushed to the extreme where simple percussion phrases alternate with the interventions of three solo voices and, towards the end, the organ.

If you don't know Arvo Pärt, it might be because you've never seen him on television, nor will you ever. But if you have ever looked inside yourself, then you are ready to be seduced by this music.