Hermann Conen has written that Arvo Part’s mature work “makes a quiet, wordless protest against the compulsion to be modern, against a planned and prescribed progress into the relentlessly new in the light of ‘unchangeable truths’ of faith”. Indeed, it remains profoundly minimalist, not in the ‘repeated patterns’ sense of early Reich, but in its economy of means and purity of sound. With Part, there is never any question as to whether a particular note might have been better placed elsewhere; rather, meaningful silences confirm the rightness both of what went before and what comes next: there is no wastage, no marking time and none of the uneasy busyness than signals a need to talk without having anything to say. Litany, or “Prayers of St John Chrysostom for each Hour of the Day and Night” consists, like so much of Part’s work, entirely of essentials. The high string writing that opens the piece prompts ethereal solo voices and the quiet, Sibelian rumble of a big drum tremolando. Within minutes the mood intensifies and the instruments – rather more of them than we’re used to from this composer (including select brass and woodwind) – congregate to heighten the drama. At 11'06'', the mood changes with a pulsing drum and a gently insistent rhythm. Again, volume and mood intensify, but this time the principal climax – which mushrooms suddenly to almost Wagnerian proportions – summons gongs, bells, bass-drum and timpani for what sounds like a solemn ritual chiming.
In terms of length and sonority, Litany is the biggest work on the disc, whereas Psalom and Trisagion – both of which call on a string orchestra – revisit the quietistic atmosphere of Fratres. Psalom (a mere 6'45'' in length) relies as much on rests as on manifest notes, and recalls, in mood if not structure, the unpeopled terrains of Liszt’s Von der Weige bis zum Grabe (“From the Cradle to the Grave”). Trisagion is just under half as long again and features sudden declamations midway, aching dialogue between upper and lower voices and a brief, propulsive ending based on a single repeated chord. Both works suggest wordless meditations in a space somewhere outside of time and rely heavily on the sustained concentration of their interpreters. This they receive in abundance, not only from the players themselves but from Manfred Eicher and his team, who have negotiated the acoustic of the Mozartsaal, Stuttgart with immense skill. Litany was recorded a few days later (September 18th-20th, 1995) in the Niguliste Church, Talinn, though the change of location barely registers. Heard simply as sound, all three works ravish the ear.
Playing-time is less than average and yet in this case, one feels reluctant to complain. Like most of Part’s best works, Litany, Psalom and Trisagion leave an aural aftertaste that resonates far beyond the allotted time-span of a single well-filled CD, indeed of 20.'