Why, you ask, is this one of the new classical albums that so many non-classical musicians love? Is it because the changes in the opening track, “Fratres,” are the same as “Sultans of Swing”? Tabula Rasa is broken into several sections, and two of them are versions of “Fratres,” which is just one of those chord sequences, like The Disintegration Loops or Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet or Music for Airports. It takes you to a place and then sets up the world around it and lets you stay there for as long as you want to stay. If ice was able to write a theme song for itself, it would have written “Fratres.”

When the musicians first opened the score to Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa, the title work of ECM’s inaugural New Series release, they said, “Where’s the music?” The answer to that question signified a major shift in the practice of its composer. Scored for two violins, prepared piano, and orchestra, it is a meta-statement for the 20th century. Pianist Keith Jarrett and violinist Gidon Kremer open this program with a muscular version of the composer’s popular Fratres, drawing out its percussive heartbeat. Another version for 12 cellos, alongside the mournful Cantus In Memory Of Benjamin Britten, completes the circle of comfort.