After a subterranean rumble, a sorrowful fanfare makes way for an ascent of the solo piano keyboard, and a shuddering orchestral climax that sets the tolling of alarm bells against a Mahlerian funeral march...Impressive performances, a seductive ECM recording, and works that no-one with an interest in contemporary art and music can afford to miss.

The main piece on this latest release has passages of visceral power unheard in Pärt's work for almost three decades. Lamentate was inspired by Anish Kapoor's gigantic sculpture Marsyas, which filled the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in London. Confronted with this monumental work, Pärt felt he was standing before his own body after death. 'I had a strong sense of not being ready to die,' he says, 'and was moved to ask myself what I could still accomplish in the time left to me.' Lamentate is intended as a lament for the living, 'struggling with the pain and hopelessness of this world'. The solo piano part can be seen as the first person narrative of an individual, beset by challenges represented by the orchestra, which uses sharper textures, more dramatic gestures and a broader range of colours than we usually expect from this most controlled and ascetic of composers. It makes one eager to know what his next step will be.
In Da pacem Domine (2004), for which Sarah Leonard extends the Hilliard's range, Pärt takes a ninth-century antiphon as his startingpoint, floating the serene, radiant lines of this prayer for peace with characteristic airy grace, slowly opening up the textures and exploring some tart harmonies before returning to a final consoling chord.