A fine new disc in celebration of Pärt’s 75th birthday, with world premiere recordings of the Stabat mater in choral-orchestral guise and the Cantique des degrès, and the Third Symphony, a work that marked the beginning of a sea-change in the composer’s compositional style, back in 1971. The Stabat mater receives a performance that misses no nuance of its new, more dramatic trappings, but I’d urge anyone also to experience the original chamber version (the Hilliard Ensemble, ECM, 9/87). The Cantique is much more recent (1999/2002), and an intriguing example of what happens to Pärt’s music when he sets different languages, in this case French. There’s a sprightliness to the work that seems to correspond directly to that language (Poulenc?), but which frequently turns out to have Mozartian intentions. If the work sounds difficult to describe, it is.

As for the Symphony No 3, the work’s dedicatee Neeme Jäarvi has a sure feel for the music’s disconcerting contrasts, of almost academic bicinia and heart-on-sleeve pseudo-Tchaikovsky, but I detect overall a little more warmth, a touch more flexibility and a more legato sound in this new recording. Most remarkable is the second movement, which in the Berliners’ performance runs to just over nine minutes, whereas Neeme Järvi brings it in at 6'22". I’m more convinced by the latter; the slower speed stretches it to just beyond that point at which the innate tension and relaxation of the long melodic lines is broken. But the orchestral sound is luscious and no subtlety missed: an important disc for any admirer of the composer.