“…This is not music that hinges on sudden shifts and sharp contrasts. However, at its core lies the age-old dichotomy between freedom and control, head and heart…Mullova brilliantly manages to tease out these dichotomies on this new recording…In Fratres, she approaches each variation from a different angle. Sap and rosin fly off the bow in the coruscating arpeggio figurations of the opening chord sequence.”

“… The Russian violinist brings her strength, articulation, and depth of tone to Pärt’s measured simplicity; one senses an artistic affinity that perhaps derives from their shared, formative experiences under the Soviet Union. But the recording is not merely interpretative, it is also collaborative. The composer himself was present and active in the recording sessions, which is one of the constant strengths of the many excellent Pärt recordings coming out of Estonia. Mullova’s performances of Tabula Rasa and Fratres are expansive and solid, the soloist extracting a great deal of emotion, even anger, from the works. Likewise, her Passacaglia exhibits a ferociousness that, working within Pärt’s mathematical compositional style, comes primarily from her muscular bowing. The dichotomy between minimalist rigidity and spiritualism that drives Pärt’s work is dissolved in a heart-aching performance of the perilously transparent Spiegel im Spiegel.” *****

Diapason d'Or 

Sound: 5/5