Words (un)Spoken

Raschèr Saxophone Quartet

WORDS (un)SPOKEN
RASCHÈR SAXOPHONE QUARTET

Released on September 11th, 2025, on Arvo Pärt’s 90th birthday! The presentation concert featuring Raschèr Saxophone Quartet took place in Christuskirche Freiburg, Germany, on September 11th, 2025.

#2 Bach. Canzona. Fragment 3 min 45 sec, MP3, 320 Kbps

#6 Purcell. Plaint. Fragment 4 min 48 sec, MP3, 320 Kbps

#8 Pärt. Nunc dimittis. Fragment 2 min 51 sec, MP3, 320 Kbps

* World premiere recording of this version
Total time 77:10

Published by Universal Edition (#2–5, #7–11)

Performed by:
Christina Bock – mezzo-soprano (#3, #6)

Raschèr Saxophone Quartet (#1–11): Christine Rall – soprano saxophone, Elliot Riley – alto saxophone, Andreas van Zoelen – tenor saxophone, Oscar Trompenaars – baritone saxophone
Members of the Raschèr Academy Orchestra (#3, #8): Cyprian Szawracki – alto saxophone, Pawel Filipowicz – alto saxophone, Eva Kotar – alto saxophone, Hannah Koob – tenor saxophone, Iria Garrido Meira – baritone saxophone
Jay Schwartz – conductor (#3)

Recorded February 23rd–27th, 2022 in the Arvo Pärt Centre, Laulasmaa, Estonia
Engineered by Christoph Ruetz
Mastering by Kaspar Karner
Recording supervision by Arvo Pärt (#2, #7–8)
Photos by Brigitte Ruppenthal-von Radetzky, Felix Broede and Sandra Ludewig
Liner notes by Immo Mihkelson
Design by Mart Kivisild
Produced by Andreas van Zoelen and Peeter Vähi

Special thanks: Arvo and Nora Pärt, Michael Pärt, Riin Eensalu and the team of the Arvo Pärt Centre, Brigitte Ruppenthal-von Radetzky, Dietrich von Radetzky, Eric Marinitsch, Dr. Burkhard Schäfer, Academy of Music and Performing Arts, Netherlands Freunde des Raschèr Saxophone Quartets e.V.

Music is a mystery that transcends words. Its secret captivates people, urges them to delve deeper into it, and seek more from its sounds. At the end of the search, with good fortune, everything may transform into a wordless song, where the rational and irrational meet and become one. When a sound wave reaches the listener and, through their ears, scatters into the mind like atom-like particles, something inexplicable happens – but only if the receiver, the listener, is ready for it. Throughout centuries, countless attempts have been made to confine this phenomenon within the framework of logical explanations, yet it always seems that uncovering the true essence of music is as hopeless as trying to put a finger on a sunspot.
The Raschèr Saxophone Quartet’s album Words (un)Spoken also strives toward this goal. For more than half a century, the group has followed this path. The experience gathered from hundreds of premieres, dozens of recordings, and thousands of concerts has been passed from player to player and accumulated, even as the ensemble’s lineup has gradually changed over the years.
A musician playing a wind instrument understands well the essence of breath in every moment of music-making. They must always be completely immersed in the music, with their entire body. Perhaps they know or sense something more than rest of us about the unspoken mystery of music.
The quartet’s new album centers around the works of Arvo Pärt. Although the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Clara Schumann make the framework of the album, the same spirit of wordless storytelling and solemnity extends onto all pieces, embodying the aspirations of the renowned Estonian composer.
The album itself was recorded at the Arvo Pärt Centre, located in a pine forest, several dozen kilometers away from the hustle of the city. Arvo Pärt’s frequent presence has shaped the atmosphere of the place. Somewhere near the golden ratio point on the album lies Pärt’s Summa, which could be considered the centerpiece, radiating a meaningful influence on the other tracks.
Of course, meanings and interpretations can always be viewed from multiple perspectives, but this musical work requires a slightly deeper explanation to understand why its spirit reaches far beyond its own boundaries.
Summa is a work that, from its very first notes written on paper until today, has undergone various transformations, while maintaining its core, which radiates thought into sounds. It is also a piece of music where the flow of sounds in just a few minutes subtly encapsulates more energy of the thought than in many other widely known works by Arvo Pärt. He began composing in November 1977, after the premiere of Tabula Rasa. The gentle yet profoundly yearning explosion of beauty that accompanied this music had already reached people, and the composer himself had experienced a joyful shock from it. That fervor must have been indescribable. The very same creative surge also included Fratres and Arbos, which had been completed slightly earlier.
But Summa is, in its own way, perhaps the most special among these works. The composition that Pärt began writing was originally titled Credo – not the one that marked the end of his explorations in modernism in the 1960s, but a new one in every sense. This was already tintinnabuli music, through which a person deeply devoted to music and exploring the meaning of existence sought contact with the highest spheres. It was a Great Desire, and music could give it wings.
And all of this was meant to be the Sum – the collection of truths contained within the Catholic Credo text, which the composer used as the foundation for the music. This was his affirmation, his confession of faith.
The room with the Arvo Pärt’s writing desk was in a grey concrete block house located in a city permeated by the Soviet regime. The suffocating environment suffocated the longing that drove Pärt. There was no hope that a musical work with such a religious text and such content could ever reach listeners around him. But he wrote anyway – arranging the relationships between notes and syllables, constructing music like a cathedral, creating intertwining formulas meant to encode a message into sounds. A message that, someday, through his music, hopefully would find its way to people.
This was a time when Arvo Pärt, while writing music, was still exploring the boundaries of his tintinnabuli-discovery and experimenting with its possibilities. At some point, he hoped that he would be able to achieve such a universal order where it no longer mattered what instruments were used to perform the music. Because the structures formed by sounds would funtion as a key that opens a door within the listener, and then communication would inevitably occur.
This seems too beautiful a dream to be true in the material world. However, looking back now at Arvo Pärt’s tintinnabuli story, which will soon span half a century, we see a series of works that  exist in different versions and have spread across the world, performed by various instruments – they share the same structure but have different sound qualities.
Or, to be more precise, the code that the composer embedded in the music functions in any case. Unspoken words tell their story.
This approach could characterize any music that touches people in some way. Stories encoded in sounds should be able to speak and convey their meaning. And here, the role of performers is crucial. They aren’t just intermediaries of sounds, but active participants in shaping the music into audible form. Consciously or unconsciously, they add a piece of themselves and their perspectives of the world to the composer’s instructions. Often, they emphasize or smooth out certain aspects, altering the intonations of the narrative. This is called interpretation, but it can also be something more. And performers are the ones who choose the works for concerts and recordings. This choice usually aligns with their own essence. The solemnity of the album Words (un)Spoken is a reflection of the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet. The Quartet has a long and meaningful friendship with Arvo Pärt. Tenor saxophonist Andreas van Zoelen enjoy’s Pärt’s trust in translating his music to the sonic world of the saxophone.

If there were an Olympic discipline for virtuoso wind playing,
the Raschèr Quartet would definitely receive a gold medal. (Die Welt)

The Raschèr Saxophone Quartet was founded in 1969 and is today one of the world’s leading saxophone quartets. Although they started in the United States, they soon relocated to Germany, where they are still based today. The name comes from the legendary classical saxophonist Sigurd Raschèr, who was also a founding member of the group. After Sigurd’s daughter, Carina, stopped performing in 2002, the quartet continued under the same name without any Raschèrs on board.
When introducing themselves, the group emphasizes that they operate and make musical decisions on a democratic basis – in other words, they have no sole leader.
Over the decades, more than 300 composers have written pieces for them, and even a quick glance at their repertoire reads like a lexicon of contemporary music: Philip Glass, Sofia Gubaidulina, Mauricio Kagel, Iannis Xenakis, Per Nørgård, Giya Kancheli, Erkki-Sven Tüür, and many others.
The Raschèr Saxophone Quartet’s music can be heard on over 50 recordings. Their stylistic range is vast, and repertoire highly flexible. In addition to solo concerts, they have performed with many renowned orchestras, choirs, and soloists. There are few prestigious concert halls in the world where the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet has not left its mark with their saxophones. Lets name just a few: Musikverein, Royal Festival Hall, Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center…

German mezzo-soprano Christina Bock is known for her radiant and colorful voice and her fearless, adventurous characters on stage and her own concert creations that blend different genres, performance and constellations into each other. She made her first professional appearance on stage at the age of 20.
She has been member of the International Opernstudio of the Badische Staatstheater Karlsruhe, before she joined the ensemble for a season. From 2012–2020 she has been artist of the Semperoper Dresden, where she sang all lyric repertoire. Followed by a strong and frequent artistic relationship with the Staatsoper Wien and the Bayerische Staatsoper. Recent engagements included the Royal Opera London, Opera Bastille and the Salzburger Festspiele. Christina Bock regularly performs in recital, with different chamber music ensembles, international festivals and interdisciplinary projects. Next projects including new Productions at the Royal Opéra de Wallonie and the Bayerische Staatsoper.
Her debut album released in 2025.

© Raschèr Saxophone Quartet, ERP

2025
ERP 14425

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Distribution: Raschèr Saxophone Quartet, muusikapood.ee, JPC Leidenschaft für Musik, Arvo Pärt Centre, and ERP’s online shop
Digital tracks will be available at Spotify, Deezer, iTunes / Apple Music in few days.

Related links: www.raschersaxophonequartet.com; www.vanzoelen.eu; www.christinabock.com; www.jayschwartz.eu; www.freunde-rsq.de

See also other CDs released by ERP with music by Arvo Pärt: Vater unser, Diagrams, Early Music of 3rd Millennium, Contra aut pro?, Pilgrim’s Song, 100 Years of Estonian Symphony, Ellerhein