On 10–11 February, world-renowned conductor and pianist Dennis Russell Davies visited the Arvo Pärt Centre with his wife, pianist Maki Namekawa. The couple, visiting Estonia for the first time, came specifically to see the centre, where they also met with Arvo and Nora Pärt. Their visit added to the centre’s archive with valuable recollections of their experiences performing Pärt’s music. Before their departure, they had just enough time for a brief tour of Tallinn’s Old Town.
Davies, who celebrated his 80th birthday last year, has performed Pärt’s works for decades. His first collaboration with the composer was the recording of Tabula Rasa (ECM) in January 1984, when he conducted the first-ever recording of Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten with the Staatsorchester Stuttgart at the invitation of producer Manfred Eicher. Just a year later, in January 1985, Davies conducted the world premiere of Te Deum at Cologne’s Funkhaus with the WDR Choir and Symphony Orchestra Cologne. He was also at the helm for the first recording of the title track for Pärt’s next ECM album, Arbos (ECM, 1987), performed with the brass ensemble of the Staatsorchester Stuttgart. More recently, he conducted the first recording of These Words… with the Bruckner Orchester Linz (Orange Mountain Music, 2018). As both a conductor and pianist, Davies has performed many of Pärt’s works, often with Maki Namekawa. In 2022, he released an album with the Brno Philharmonic featuring Nekrolog, Symphony No. 3 and Lamentate, with Namekawa as the soloist.
During their conversation at the Arvo Pärt Centre, Maki Namekawa reflected on performing Pärt’s music, noting that she often needs to contemplate what lies behind the notes: “When I play his music, I really have to think more about what goes on behind every note. Playing his music can also teach you a lot about yourself. When I practice his music, I’m really learning from him about life. How simple, how beautiful, how strong and very deep – that is my process of approaching his music.”
Dennis Russell Davies recalled a moment when Arvo Pärt once quoted Mozart to him: „The music is not in the notes, the music is in the space between the notes.“ He also described his first encounter with a Pärt score: “I think I remember being pleasantly surprised and immediately seeing the difficulty. Because when something looks very simple – careful, careful! And also the questions of tempo, space and time – that really appeals to me. This way of taking time as a composer really appeals to me, because you have to take time to play the music. It needs to sound and it needs to exist before you move on. You have to understand what you have just heard. The composers like Arvo and the music they did appeal to me very much.”
Photos by Birgit Püve