Arvo Pärt - Für Alina
Für Alina by Arvo Pärt (15311 KB)
Arvo Pärt’s disc Alina includes two different versions of Für Alina, this is the second. The composition as put to paper by Pärt is actually only two minutes in length, 15 bars, but the pianist is instructed to play the piece in a manner “Calm, exalted, listening to one’s inner self” (translated in the liner notes from German) and to improvise within the written notes. For this recording, Alexander Malter played continuously for hours in the ECM studios and Pärt selected two ~11 minute segments to isolate on this disc. (Can you imagine what it must be like to listen to that multi-hour recording late at night with a nice bottle of scotch!) The photographer Bettina von Zwehl completed in 2004 an interesting portraiture project that centered around Für Alina. She sat the subjects at a table in a white, unlit room. As the subjects sat at the table, very quietly Für Alina began playing. After the subjects had been sitting in darkness and listening to this piece for a few minutes, suddenly and without warning the flashbulbs went off simultaneous with the camera’s shutter. The images captured are that of the subjects lost in utter contemplation—they look exactly as I feel when I listen to this.
Listen on posterousSee the full gallery on posterous And finally, here is an excerpt from the documentary 24 Preludes for a Fugue, which I linked to previously, during which Pärt discusses the piece with a class of students. In the clip, Pärt compares Für Alina to a blade of grass, simple but yet it contains all the beauty of a flower soon to be released. It’s a similar metaphor to that contained in the liner notes to the ECM release in which Pärt compares the piece to white light containing all the colors of the rainbow, locked within only until passing through a prism; this prism “could be the spirit of the listener.” Buy it here.















