"LOS ANGELES"

ECM New Series has released what I personally regard as the most eloquent protest against human rights violation in the post-Soviet world — Symphony no. 4 "Los Angeles" by Arvo Pärt.

This is a live performance recorded at Walt Disney Hall in January 2009 (Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen). Though the performance is different from what I heard in February 2010, when the Fourth was premiered in Estonia by Tõnu Kaljuste and the Nargen Festival Orchestra (the LA Philharmonic strings sound a touch more Romantic than those of the NF Orchestra, and the marimba in the "Con sublimità" part sounds recessed), it captures the very essence of this music: A bitter succession of close-ups you never want to see other than on TV.