Paavo Järvi is celebrating the birthday of the great Estonian composer twice over.
When Paavo Järvi took up his post as Music Director at the Tonhalle Maag in September 2019, Arvo Pärt was also there. A new version of his piece "If Bach had bred bees ..." was on the programme, and that was no coincidence: Paavo Järvi has known the legendary Estonian composer since his childhood, "he was always Uncle Arvo to me".
Now he will be celebrating Pärt's 90th birthday twice over with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and the Estonian Festival Orchestra. The composer himself will not be coming to Zurich this time, but he may well be involved in the preparations from afar: before the last Zurich performance of "La Sindone", he and Paavo Järvi spoke on the phone for two hours. Two hours of conversation for a nine-minute piece? "We could have talked a lot longer," said Järvi at the time, "but I know his music well, so a few key words are enough."
The remark shows how difficult it is to play what is superficially simple, what worlds open up in and behind Pärt's few notes. And also how much it means to Paavo Järvi to find the essence of these works again and again.
