Tabula Rasa
by Arvo Part
String Orchestra - Sheet Music

Orchestra violin, viola, string orchestra and prepared piano

SKU: PR.UE031938

Composed by Arvo Part. Study score. With Standard notation. Universal Edition #UE031938. Published by Universal Edition (PR.UE031938).

ISBN 9783702408039. UPC: 803452005698.

Tabula rasa is Part's most extensive instrumental work. Inspired by the concerto grosso from the Baroque period - a small group of instruments, against the rest of the orchestra - the first movement, Con moto (with movement), features Vivaldi-like textures resulting from its use of static rhythms and homophonic structure. The prepared piano - in which different objects are put into the instrument, thus creating different starling sounds (in this piece screws between the strings) - makes a clear reference to bells. The first movement develops through a juxtaposition of two different episodes: one rhythmically active and one calm section in which only one violin and piano take part. The motion in the active section increases gradually in register and rhythmic activity and culminates in an extensively arpeggiated, almost violent, section. In the second movement, Senza moto (without movement), the prepared piano serves an even more important function - providing the only rhythmic and coloristic contrasts to the extended canon sections in which the celli expand a diatonic scale upwards and downwards, similar to the technique used in Cantus, followed in canon by the first violins. (Per F. Broman, 1997, taken from the booklet of BIS CD 834).