A Far Cry orchestra on divine algorithms and channeling Arvo Pärt

A Far Cry is a self-conducted chamber orchestra from Boston which approaches the hierarchical classical music world in a democratic, collaborative way. Their stunning, controlled rendition of Silentium is the title track and entire B Side of our long-in-the-works new record of the same name, which aims to present some of Arvo Pärt’s most famous pieces in their most distilled form. 

We first heard this version of Silentium as a low-res YouTube clip late one night after listening through dozens of Arvo renditions. This piece was different, slowed down, almost making time stand still. So we reached out to A Far Cry. Thankfully, they had recorded that performance in pristine quality. Sound engineer Andrew Weathers mixed and mastered the audio to create what you hear on the record, which was pressed with care at Smashed Plastic in Chicago.

Despite my appreciation for the music, and the years-long process of getting the album together, I’d never talked with the collective members about the creative side of their work. So finally, for this newsletter, we did just that…

Alex Fortes is co-artistic director of A Far Cry. He spoke on the phone with label head Cyrus Moussavi. Their convo has been edited down for clarity.

Cyrus: Tell me a bit about yourself, A Far Cry, and how this performance came about…

Alex: My name is Alex Fortes. I'm a violinist and one of A Far Cry's co-artistic directors. A Far Cry is a conductorless, or self-conducted, string collective based in Boston, Massachusetts. We've been around for about 18 years, and I was one of the co-curators for a concert we did in January 2017 that included a performance of Arvo Pärt’s “Tabula Rasa” which has two movements: “Ludens” and “Silentium.”

A Far Cry is a very egalitarian group. Everyone contributes to the administration, to the artistic leadership. We rotate principals, we rotate concert curators, etcetera. And this concert wanted to play with that idea by looking at different aspects of leadership and following.

The title of the work, Tabula Rasa - the “blank slate” - comes from old 18th century liberals like John Locke, who wrote about human nature being a blank slate. Those early ideas of democracy and human nature resonated with a lot of the group's ideals.

What we loved about working with [violin soloists] Stefan Jackiw and Alexi Kenney on these two pieces is that, even though they are incredibly virtuosic challenges for two solo violins, they are also pieces that are not traditional showcases of the soloist as somehow above the orchestra.

Oftentimes [in these pieces], the soloists, even if they have deep challenges, are very much subordinate to the role of the other people playing. So that theme of what is leadership, what is democracy, what is following, was what the whole program was about.

CM: That’s beautiful. I’ve listened to “Silentium” dozens of times but never thought of “soloists.” How did you approach this famous piece? What was your angle? 

AF: What I love about Arvo Pärt is that everything that he writes, particularly during this first period of what he called tintinnabulation [the ringing or sound of bells] - pieces like Tabula Rasa, like Fratres, like Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten -  is that the music is almost algorithmic. You could almost boil down what he does over the course of an entire piece into a mathematical equation. But it never feels as circumscribed as that would suggest. And, in general, the harmonies, maybe because of that, seem inevitable and bring you into often a different relationship with time.

“Silentium” particularly is such a virtuosic challenge for the solo violins. You have to play incredibly beautifully, incredibly lyrically, at the stratospheric limits of the instrument. But a lot of the rhythm and form has to come from the rest of the band. Again we ask who is leading, who is following? 

CM: You mentioned this idea of playing with time throughout the performance. You played Silentium quite a bit slower than the ECM recording. What was the decision-making behind that? How did you approach tempo?

AF: I'd say the first thing is virtuosity. It's incredibly difficult to play it that slowly. We were very lucky to work with Alexi and Stefan, who have a particular talent of having an incredible clarity of tone and incredibly thoughtful musicality, and also a flawless technique to allow that kind of glacial tempo to never feel stuck, and for the sound to never crack.

They were very interested in challenging themselves to see just how prolonged it can be. And especially, as a contrast to the first movement of that piece, which is called “Ludus” or  “Game.” It has a much more playful quality to it. To then go into something that almost stands still without ever losing a sense of motion was, I think, what we were interested in in that performance.

CM: I come to this piece as a general listener. Why do you think Arvo Part’s music resonates with people who aren’t necessarily fans of contemporary classical music? 

AF: I think that one of the nice things about what Arvo Pärt did for contemporary music was that in the late 20th century, there was a bit of an orthodoxy that music could only be written in a certain style. I think he, in a very different way than American minimalists like Philip Glass and Steve Reich, created music that was incredibly sincere, innovative, but also accessible at a time when sometimes the inaccessibility of the music was part of the point.

There were people who didn't think it could be good unless it was something you had to study in order to understand. And for us today, I think that has shaped a lot of A Far Cry’s programming.

CM: It’s one thing to listen, but I’m curious as a performer and musician what you experience when you play. What’s happening in this piece? 

AF: Yeah, if you don't mind, let me just get the score up for this. So first of all, it has this interesting component that I think is unique in Arvo Pärt’s music, of the prepared piano. There are instructions in the score, but basically the way the piano's prepared is you put bolts in between the strings that add additional overtones and additional vibrations that make the piano create interesting tonalities as different keys are pressed. It also asks for amplification, which allows those overtones to be more clearly communicated than they would be if it was simply an acoustic piano.

He marks in the score that specific notes should have between them bolts of two different sizes, .6 and .5. You can choose exactly where on the string they are, which changes the overtones, but that's how you get that sound that is quite bell-like in it.

And then in terms of “Silentium,” one thing is he marks it senza moto, which in Italian means “without motion.” That stillness is the idea. 

The simplicity of it is that it's almost totally based on a D minor scale. You have the prepared piano playing just a D minor arpeggio. And then you have one set of voices going up and down from D, just one note and two notes and three notes, but at different speeds. And the other voice is just playing different notes in the D minor chord against it. And that's like the whole thing. It’s so simple, but it creates this incredible texture and this incredible harmony and really draws you in. 

I think it's interesting that it’s called “Silentium,” but  there's actually no point of actual silence. There's constant music going on at the bottom of the possible range of dynamics.

CM: [laughs] I guess that’s not an accident. What's your own relationship with Arvo Pärt's music? How did you first hear him?

AF: As a kid, I remember one of the most interesting pieces that would ever come up on the radio was The Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten. On a lot of classical stations in the '80s and '90s, it might have been the only piece that they played that was written after 1940.

So that was my first awareness of Arvo Pärt, through that music. 

I think what I've always been struck personally by is this sense of algorithm. Even before I understood exactly what he was doing, it was very clear that there was just something incredibly rational about what was going on, but it wasn't rational in a way that took away from emotion or from spirituality. It was a sort of rationalism that seemed larger than human. And that attracted me to his music and made it often a really satisfying experience to both listen to and to play.

I think what I've always been struck personally by is this sense of algorithm. Even before I understood exactly what he was doing, it was very clear that there was just something incredibly rational about what was going on, but it wasn't rational in a way that took away from emotion or from spirituality. It was a sort of rationalism that seemed larger than human. And that attracted me to his music and made it often a really satisfying experience to both listen to and to play.

CM: There's an Alex Ross article that's very often quoted about how “Silentium,” especially, was played in palliative care facilities. Have you heard this story?

AF: I've heard of it. I think he wrote an article about how AIDS and cancer patients often requested this and were obsessed with this piece and called it Angel Music.

It definitely has that aspect to it. One thing that we are always happy to hear from people who listen to us, and we got after we played this piece, is the comment that this provided a sort of comfort after the death of a loved one, that few things can. And that, I think for all of us, is one of the reasons that we are musicians. 

You can learn more about A Far Cry and their mission here.
Mississippi Records thanks A Far Cry for their collaboration on Silentium, which is out now on vinyl and CD (!)