A celebration of a contemporary giant proves a mixed affair
The Strad Issue: May 2026
Description: A celebration of a contemporary giant proves a mixed affair
Musicians: Reinis Zariņš, Raffi Kharajanyan (piano) Palladio Trio
Works: Pärt: Für Alina; Pari intervallo; Partita op.2; Diagramme op.11; Variations for the Healing of Arinushka; Hymn to a Great City; Passacaglia; Fratres; Mozart-Adagio; Spiegel im Spiegel. Pelēcis: AREFA. Selickis: La-Re-Fa Variations
Catalogue number: ONDINE ODE1478-2
Latvian musician Reinis Zariņš’s disc devoted to Arvo Pärt’s chamber works with piano has some surprising rarities along the way. These include the declamatory dissonances of the early Partita, for example, and the endless perfect cadences of the distinctly un-Pärt-like Hymn to a Great City, both given vivid, characterful performances. Similarly, Zariņš offers sensitive, elegant accounts of two new works by Georgs Pelēcis and Andrejs Selickis, written in tribute to Pärt.
The four works with strings that close the disc, however, are slightly more varied. Eva Bindere’s violin sounds surprisingly distant in the Passacaglia, her march rhythms rather jazzily swung, her tone occasionally approaching harshness. There’s surprisingly little drama in the expansive gestures of her and Zariņš’s account of Fratres, and the piece’s fluttering arpeggios feel effortful rather than otherworldly.
Bindere and Zariņš are joined by their Palladio Trio colleague Kristīne Blaumane on cello for an engagingly nervy but sensitive account of the Mozart-Adagio, with a beautifully smooth shared sense of ensemble. That matched restraint returns in the closing Spiegel im Spiegel, in which each of Blaumane’s notes offers a momentary musical world to inhabit – even if some of Zariņš’s high keyboard notes sound more like whipcracks than gentle chimes. It’s a rewarding release, captured in variable sound, but its revelations arguably come more from its keyboard works than the string music.
DAVID KETTLE
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