Arvo Pärt Gets a 90th Birthday Tribute at Carnegie Hall  

By Brian Wise; photos by Fadi Kheir

For those who associate Arvo Pärt with a contemplative, austerely beautiful (and Hollywood-friendly) version of minimalism, there was plenty to satisfy in a program by the Estonian Festival Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on October 23. Conducted by Paavo Järvi, the concert served as a US birthday salute to the Estonian composer, who turned 90 in September. It also served to kick off his tenure as Carnegie Hall’s composer’s chair for the 2025–26 season. 

But the nearly three-hour program—marking the orchestra’s North American debut—offered a much wider spectrum of Pärt’s music than that found on “mystical minimalism” playlists and film soundtracks (IMDb lists more than 100 films featuring his music). The orchestra gathered eight works spanning six decades of Pärt’s career, from youthful forays in wild-eyed modernism to examples of his serene Tintinnabuli style. It was an ambitious agenda, and the momentum lagged in places, only to recover based on the sheer strength of the performances. 

Though Pärt himself didn’t attend (he lives a quiet life in rural Estonia these days), the concert drew some notable compatriots, including Estonia’s president, Alar Karise, and figures from the country’s cultural orbit. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, which sang on two pieces, returned to Carnegie’s Zankel Hall the following night for a showcase of his choral music.  

Järvi and this strikingly large orchestra saved the most recognizable music for the second half, including Tabula Rosa, the double concerto that solidified Pärt’s international reputation through a 1984 ECM recording. Tonight, the work featured violinists Midori and Hans Christian Aavik weaving the exquisite melodic patterns over a subtly blended orchestra and Nico Muhly’s prepared piano (yes, that Nico Muhly).  

This was Aavik’s US debut, and the 27-year-old Estonian rose to the moment with a dashing yet sensitive presence, his sweeping bow strokes finely intertwined with Midori’s own fluid, keening sound. As their syncopated lines chased each other through the first section, the violinists were a study in contrasts: Aavik’s demonstrative style versus Midori’s more tightly focused presence. The pair returned for an encore, Pärt’s Passacaglia in its 2007 arrangement for two violins, vibraphone, and string orchestra. With lots of percussive bowing and pizzicato, the work played to the strengths of both violinists. 

Dark String Canvases

The concert opened with Pärt’s elegiac Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, whose tolling bell and dark string tone was just long enough to let the players warm up and establish the mood. The 1963 Perpetuum mobile hails from Pärt’s early serialist phase and unfolds as a five-minute apocalyptic crescendo, expertly calibrated by Järvi. The cellos and double basses took center stage in La Sindone, a brooding reflection on the Shroud of Turin.

Perhaps the only misfire in programming was Adam’s Lament. Based on a text from a Russian Orthodox Church, it’s a somewhat gloomy canvas filled with austere silences. But it suffered mainly from its place on the program: After so many dark-hued pieces, the 25-minute length seemed much longer.  

But as the post-intermission clock ticked past 10 PM, the pace quickened again as the stylistic contrasts grew. Fratres (Brothers) held a soft, haunting power in a string orchestra and percussion arrangement. The Estonians’ focus in soft, vibrato-free chords was truly a marvel. Then came the waltz-like Swansong, a 2013 orchestration of a vocal piece that was appealingly lilting and colorful.

The evening ended with Credo, a watershed work with a direct link to the Järvi family: When Paavo Järvi’s father, Neeme, conducted its world premiere in 1968, the audience’s reaction was so enthusiastic that he conducted it a second time, much to the chagrin of the Soviet authorities. 

Credo unfolds as a titanic struggle between the barbed serialist language of Pärt’s youth and the mystical Tintinnabuli aesthetic that would emerge during the 1970s. Underpinning the entire drama are snippets of Bach’s Prelude in C major, played by Muhly with an appropriately unsettling understatement. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir along with New York’s Trinity Choir brought the requisite heft to the outbursts of “Credo” while Järvi deftly navigated the work’s abrupt shifts of mood. One was occasionally reminded of how Gustav Mahler’s music came to prominence in the turbulent 1960s, and how perhaps it’s not such a stretch to find today’s troubled world crying out for the radiance of Arvo Pärt.