Arvo Pärt on Music Theory Print

Adam's Lament (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Text#

The poem by Silouan begins: :“Адам, отец вселенной, в Раю знал сладость любвьи Божией, :И потому, когда был изгнан из Рая за грех и лишился любвьи Божией, :Горько страдал и с великим стоном рыдал на всю пустыню.” :“Adam, otets vselennoy, v rayu znal sladost’ lyubvi Bozhiyey, i potomu, kogda byl izgnan iz raya za grekh i lishilsya lyubvi Bozhiyey, gor’ko stradal i s velikim stonom rydal na vsyu pustynyu.” :“Adam, father of all mankind, in paradise knew the sweetness of the love of God; and so when for his sin he was driven forth from the garden of Eden, and was widowed of the love of God, he suffered grievously and lamented with a mighty moan. And the whole desert rang with his lamentations.” (Translated by Rosemary Edmonds.)

After the Rain (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

After the Rain was commissioned as a part of New York City Ballet’s annual New Combinations Evening, which honors the anniversary of George Balanchine’s birth with new ballets. It was the last ballet Wheeldon created for Jock Soto before Soto’s retirement in June 2005.

Choreography and music#

The first part of the ballet, set to Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa, features three couples. The second part is a pas de deux originated by Soto and Wendy Whelan, which Wheeldon said it was a “love letter, this poem to both of them as artists.” Wheeldon encouraged dancers to interpret the pas de deux in their own ways, and said the worst thing dancers could do is to “act” it.

Berliner Messe

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The work consists of five movements of the Mass ordinary and three movements intended for the celebration of Pentecost: * Kyrie * Gloria * Erster Alleluiavers (First Alleluia) * Zweiter Alleluiavers (Second Alleluia) * Veni Sancte Spiritus * Credo * Sanctus * Agnus Dei The fact that the mass was originally written for Pentecost is evidenced by the presence of the two Alleluias and the Veni Sancte Spiritus. However, Pärt has also set two Alleluia verses to permit the work to be used at Christmas. All five of these movements are marked “ad lib.” in the score.

Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Score#

After the three beats of silence that open the score, a tubular bell is struck three times very quietly (pianissimo), with 12 beats between the strikes and gap of 18 beats between the groups of three. This bell tells of the death of Britten—it is the funeral bell. It continues to be struck in groups of three widely spaced intervals for most of the piece, fading out for a time in the last 21 bars, only to reappear at the last. After the bell has struck there is a brief pause for three beats of silence, and then the first violins begin setting the pattern which the rest of the ensemble will follow at slower speeds. Half of the first violins begin playing the descending A minor scale, playing first one note from the very top of their range, then returning to the beginning and playing two notes, and then three and four and so on. The other half of the violins play notes from an A minor chord. These notes start a fourth lower and drop in pitch only when it is overrun by the first. This creates a swirling effect of increasing tension which is relieved by dropping the note. They begin playing very quietly (pianississimo) but gradually over the piece build up until they are playing very loudly (fortississimo). The second violins play exactly the same but an octave lower and at half the speed, which means they play 6 beats (one bar) of silence to begin, and appear to enter at the beginning of the second bar. Then the violas, which are the only voice not doubled, join in at quarter speed and another octave lower, the cellos at one eighth, and finally the contrabasses as one sixteenth. The basses are then playing each long note for 32 beats, and each short note for 16. At bar 65 the first violins hit middle C, and when they do they cease playing the A minor scale and simply play C continuously until the end of the piece (i.e., for more than 250 beats). Eleven bars later the second violins hit a low A and play that continuously. Similarly the other voices gradually find the note that they have been seeking and once reached, they play it continuously until the end. The last to lock into place are the contrabasses which alight on a low A in bar 103. At this stage, the whole ensemble is playing an A minor chord very very loudly, and this continues for five bars, then on the second beat of the last bar they suddenly stop. At that moment, the bell is struck very quietly (pianissimo) so that the striking itself is not heard, but only the reverberations as it dies away. As the final bell toll reverberates, with all other instruments silent, the overtones of the bell become prominently audible.

Cecilia, vergine romana

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The composition was commissioned by the Agenzia Romana per la preparazione del Giubileo of Rome in Italy for the millennium celebrations, the Great Jubilee. Pärt dedicated it to the conductor Myung-whun Chung and to the choir and orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, who performed the premiere on 19 November 2000 in Rome, close to the feast of the saint on 22 November. It was published by Universal Edition.

Da pacem Domine (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The work was commissioned by Jordi Savall for a peace concert in Barcelona on 1 July 2004. Pärt began the composition two days after the 2004 Madrid train bombings, in memory of the victims. It was first recorded on 29 March 2005 by the Hilliard Ensemble in St. Gerold, Austria. In Spain, it has been performed annually to commemorate the victims. The text is a 6th or 7th-century hymn based on biblical verses , and . is in one movement and takes about five minutes to perform. It was originally set for four voices. Pärt later wrote several versions, also for voices and string orchestra, and for instruments alone, string quartet or string orchestra. They were published by Universal Edition. The first performance for the version for voices and string orchestra was in Tallinn on 18 May 2007 at the Niguliste Church, with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste. The music critic and writer David Vernier commented on the composer’s subtle techniques of composition, forming the structure of the music from “elemental materials” such as “sonority, voicing, and rudimentary harmonies”. Vernier noted “an almost complete subordination of rhythmic influence and the relegation of melody to a more or less implied presence”. A review in The New York Times mentioned the composer’s “temporal rootlessness” and continued:

De profundis (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Pärt composed the work a year after he left Estonia, first for Vienna and then Berlin. He set Psalm 130 in Latin, a text speaking of profound distress which has inspired composers through the centuries, from polyphonic settings by Josquin des Prez to use in an opera of the 21st century by Lera Auerbach. Pärt composed the work in his personal tintinnabuli style, using simple means of expression. He scored it for a four-part men’s choir (SATB ), percussion (ad lib.) and organ, and dedicated it to the Austrian composer Gottfried von Einem. It was first performed at the Martinskirche, Kassel on 25 April 1981 by the Vokalensemble Kassel conducted by Klaus Martin Ziegler. Pärt arranged it for chamber orchestra in 2008.

Fratres

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

Structurally, Fratres consists of a set of nine chord sequences separated by a recurring percussion motif. The chord sequences themselves follow a pattern and were generated by means of a simple formula. Fratres is driven by three main voices. The low and high voices are each restricted to playing notes from the D harmonic minor scale (D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C#); the middle voice is restricted to the notes of the A minor triad (A, C, E). The entire piece is accompanied by drones in A and E, which are primarily heard in the percussion “refuge” motif between each sequence. The chords are created by the movement of the three voices: the low voice starts at C#; the high voice starts at E. Both the low and high voices are moved up or down the D harmonic minor scale at the same time, with the direction of the movement depending on the position within the sequence. The middle voice starts at A and plays a different pattern (A, E, E, C, C, C, C, A, A, E, E, C, C, A). The generated chords create harmonic ambiguity, since both C# and C are present for an A major or A minor chord.

Für Alina

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History of composition#

Für Alina was first performed in Tallinn in 1976, along with six other works, after a long preparatory period in Pärt’s life as a composer. This concert was the first to introduce his new signature style of composition, referred to as the tintinnabuli style. The title echoes Beethoven’s piece for solo piano Für Elise. While the identity of the dedicatee of Beethoven’s work is unclear, Für Alina was dedicated to a family friend’s eighteen-year-old daughter. The family had broken up and the daughter went to England with her father. The work, dedicated to the daughter, was actually meant as a work of consolation for the girl’s mother, missing her child. Its introspection calls to mind a vivid image of youth, off to explore the world.

Kanon Pokajanen

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Arvo Pärt describes his encounter with the text and the history of setting this text to music thus: :Many years ago, when I first became involved in the tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church, I came across a text that made a profound impression on me although I cannot have understood it at the time. It was the Canon of Repentance. :Since then I have often returned these verses, slowly and arduously seeking to unfold their meaning. Two choral compositions (Nun eile ich…., 1990 and Memento, 1994) were the first attempts to approach the canon. I then decided to set it to music in its entirety-from beginning to end. This allowed me to stay with it, to devote myself to it; and, at the very least, its hold on me did not abate until I had finished the score. I had a similar experience while working on Passio. :It took over two years to compose the Kanon pokajanen, and the time “we spent together” was extremely enriching. That may explain why this music means so much to me. He was commissioned by KölnMusic GmbH to write a work commemorating the 750th anniversary of the building of Cologne Cathedral. He finished it in 1997 and it premiered at Cologne Cathedral on March 17, 1998, performed by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under the direction of Tõnu Kaljuste, to whom (both choir and conductor) this piece was dedicated.

Lamentate

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

Besides the solo piano, the piece is scored for 2 flutes (2nd doubling alto flute and piccolo), 2 oboes (2nd doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets (2nd doubling piccolo trumpet), 2 trombones, timpani, percussion, and strings.

The New York premiere#

The New York premiere of Lamentate took place on January 31, 2012 in Carnegie Hall, in the first part of the 75th birthday tribute concert for the composer Philip Glass who specially requested the piece to be performed.

Magnificat (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Stylistic aspects#

Tintinnabulation is the most important aspect of Pärt’s Magnificat. According to Pärt’s biographer and friend Paul Hillier, the Magnificat “displays the tintinnabuli technique at its most supple and refined.” Pärt also uses drones; a second-line G in the alto near the end of the piece, as well as the third-space C (on which the soprano solo line always stays) which provides a tonal center for the piece. Hillier says that “many pieces by Pärt tend through length and repetition to establish a sense of timelessness or a continual present; the use of drones (which are in a sense a continuous repetition) reinforces this effect.” Arvo Pärt’s wife Nora has said of his music, The concept of tintinnabuli was born from a deeply rooted desire for an extremely reduced sound world which could not be measured, as it were, in kilometres, or even metres, but only in millimetres….By the end the listening attention is utterly focused. At the point after the music has faded away it is particularly remarkable to hear your breath, your heartbeat, the lighting or the air conditioning system, for example.

Nunc dimittis (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The Latin canticle is based on the biblical narration of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple according to the Gospel of Luke. It is one of only three canticles in the New Testament, along with the Magnificat and the Benedictus. It is part of the daily evening service compline and has often been set to music. In the English choral tradition, it is typically combined with a setting of the Magnificat for Vespers, colloquially called “Mag and Nunc”. Pärt had written a Magnificat in 1989 in Berlin, where the Estonian composer lived. was commissioned by the choir of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh, conducted by Matthew Owens. They first performed it in an Evensong of the 2001 Edinburgh Festival. It was published by Universal Edition.

Passio (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

When Pärt left Estonia for Austria in 1980, he took with him the first sketches for the St. John Passion, which would become the culmination of the tintinnabuli style. He eventually finished the work in 1982 and it was published in 1989. Since then, it has been recorded four times, and remains one of his most popular works. In much the same way that Pärt was inspired by medieval music in his creation of tintinnabuli, here too he is inspired by the earliest monophonic settings of the Passion. The St. John Passion is a through-composed setting of the text of John 18–19, preceded by a short introduction (Exordio) and followed by a brief conclusion (Conclusio). He uses a bass soloist for Jesus, a tenor for Pilate, and a Soprano-Alto-Tenor-Bass (SATB) quartet for the evangelist. In addition, there are four solo instruments, oboe, violin, cello and bassoon, organ and SATB choir. The work lasts about 70 minutes and is not broken into movements.

Salve Regina (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

was commissioned for the celebration on 22 May 2002 of 1150 years since the foundation of Stift Essen (Essen Abbey) and the city of Essen. The day was also the 75th birthday of Hubert Luthe, then Bishop of Essen, to whom the work is dedicated. It was Luthe’s wish to have a setting of this text to venerate the Golden Madonna. was performed by three choirs of the cathedral with the organist Jürgen Karsawa, conducted by Wolfgang Endrös. The work in one movement takes about 12 minutes to perform. It was published by Universal Edition in July 2002. Pärt arranged the composition for choir, celesta and string orchestra in 2011 for a celebration of 150 years of Italian unity. It was commissioned by the cities of Turin and Milan and was first performed at the .

Spiegel im Spiegel

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

Pärt’s first published musical compositions were complex and challenging, and lacked traditional melodies. During the 1970s, he wrote music that was minimalist and meditative in its style, being an early example. Pärt coined the term tintinnabuli to describe the style of his compositions. was written for piano and violin, though the violin can be replaced with a cello or a viola. The piece is an example of minimal music. It was written in the scale of F major in 6/4 time. The piano plays a seemingly endless series of rising triads, as exemplified by the introductory first three bars: : \clef treble \key f \major \tempo 2=54 \time 6/4 c f a c f a c f a c f a c f a c f a The violin melody consists of slow F major scales that rise or fall; they increase in length during the piece, all ending on the same note The alternation between ascending and descending phrases pivoted on the note A, along with the overturning of the final intervals between adjacent phrases (for example, ascending sixth in the question—descending sixth in the answer), contributes to give the impression of a figure reflecting on a mirror and walking back and towards it. Initially, the melody consists of only two notes, with another note being added with each of the following phrases, thus creating a seemingly endless continuum. After each distancing, the melody returns to the central pitch of A, which, according to the composer, is like “returning home after being away”. The piano part accompanies the melody part at each step like a “guardian angel”, as the composer himself likes to say. In addition to the accompaniment, the piano part includes tintinnabuli notes—like little bells that alternately sound above and below the melodic line, following a fixed formula. The title directly describes the music, as descending melodic line mirrors every ascending phrase.

Stabat Mater (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The text of the Stabat Mater consists of ten stanzas, in an AABCCB rhyme scheme and a syllabic meter of 887887. The poetic feet are all trochees. This verse form is characteristic of the later metrical sequence. As in several of Pärt’s works, measure breaks are determined not by regular groupings of beats and stress, but rather by the words themselves. Pärt places dotted lines in the score at line breaks in the poetry, and as in Passio, there is usually a rest following any punctuation. On a large scale, Pärt frames the ten stanzas with a 108-measure introduction and coda nearly identical in structure and musical materials; the vocalists sing only the word “Amen”. Within these frames, Pärt divides the ten stanzas into four groups, separated by instrumental interludes of a vastly different musical character. The four groups are stanzas 1–2, 3–5, 6–8, and 9–10. This grouping of 2+3+3+2 and its surrounding frame creates a perfectly symmetrical structure. It is possible to measure each of these sections’ lengths in terms of both the measures created by the number of words and the rhythmic groupings of the underlying triple pulse. The chart below represents the proportions by means of the rhythmic groupings. The introduction is exactly the same length as the coda, the 2nd and 3rd interlude are each half the length of the 1st interlude, and stanzas 1–2 and 3–5 are roughly equal to 9–10 and 4–6.

Symphony No. 3 (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

After composing his Credo in 1968, he embarked on a transitional period where he stopped composing. The reason for this creative hiatus was Pärt’s realization that his musical compositional method had been fully developed. The only major piece he decided to work on was the third symphony, which came about right before the creation of his unique tintinnabular style. During the years between 1968 and the creation of both Fratres and Tabula Rasa, Pärt delved into Gregorian chant, early polyphonic music and polyphony from the Renaissance period, from which he found much inspiration for this symphony. By doing this, he rejected the serialist musical style he pioneered and advocated in Estonia and turned to a much denser, minimalistic musical language. Pärt finally completed the symphony in 1971 and premiered it at the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn on 21 September 1972, with the dedicatee, Estonian conductor Neeme Järvi, conducting the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. Pärt described this symphony later as a “joyous work” and stated that it was not “the end of my despair and search”.

Symphony No. 4 (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Development#

Symphony No. 4 was written 37 years after Pärt’s third symphony. In the previous decade, he had written mostly mystical works for chorus and small vocal ensembles. The piece earns its nickname, Los Angeles, from its commission. Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association had long desired to commission a new work by Pӓrt, and the commission came at an opportune moment. At the time, Pӓrt was working on Kanon Pokajanen, a choral piece based on an ancient Russian Orthodox canon containing a prayer to a guardian angel. He decided to make “The Canon of the Guardian Angel” the foundation for this piece, as it was to be written for the flagship orchestra of a city whose name literally means “The Angels”. A note in the score indicates: “Pӓrt was further inspired to take the commission by the idea of seeing this work performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, one of the best orchestras in the world, under its music director Esa-Pekka Salonen, and in Walt Disney Concert Hall, one of the most exciting concert buildings of our time.”

Tabula Rasa (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In 1968, Arvo Pärt fell publicly silent and entered a period of “artistic reorientation.” During this period, he developed his tintinnabuli style of composition, which pairs two voices, one playing the notes of a scale (Melodic Voice), and the other playing notes of a triad (Tintinnabuli Voice). Pärt emerged from this period of innovation in 1976, and composed many of his most well known works, including Fratres, Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, and Summa, all written in the tintinnabuli style. Tabula Rasa is one of these earliest tintinnabuli pieces, and holds the distinction of being one of the first compositions of Pärt’s to reach Western listeners outside of Estonia and the Soviet States.

Te Deum (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Text and melody#

The Latin text of the Te Deum is made up of 29 lines of verse, each of which is the subject of one section of Pärt’s composition. These 29 sections are not considered movements in the sense of traditional choral works because they are not separated by silences or pauses. Each line of text is introduced as plainsong before its augmentation in either a choral or instrumental texture. Although each of the piece’s 29 sections follow this pattern, they function differently from the movements of traditional choral works because they are not punctuated by silences or pauses. With the notable exception of three silences, each section of the Te Deum flows directly into the succeeding one, with the wind-harp drone often serving as part of the sonic bridge between. Pärt harmonizes the melody (M-voice) of Te Deum using his signature tintinnabuli process. As is common in Pärt’s choral works, the melodic contour of the M-voice is subject to a kind of compositional serialization based directly on the text. In the case of Te Deum, the melody is tied to the text’s syllabic and grammatical features. All words either begin or end on a given pitch, and the number of syllables in each word determines how far from that pitch the melody deviates. For example, if a word has three syllables and the pitch center is A, then the first note might be A, the second note B and third note C. The melodic contours of Te Deum are thus strictly tied to the rhythms of the text. The text, by engendering the melody that then dictates the harmony, becomes fundamental to all aspects of the piece. Not only does the text provide linguistic meaning, but also it informs the musical form itself in a way that is uncharacteristic of traditional text-setting practices.

The Deer's Cry (Pärt)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The work was commissioned by the Louth Contemporary Music Society. and is often attributed to the saint. Pärt wrote his setting in modern English, beginning with “Christ with me”, composed for a four-part choir a cappella. It was published by Universal Edition in 2007, and was first performed by the State Choir Latvija, conducted by Fergus Sheil, in Drogheda on 13 February 2008. The Deer’s Cry is in a single movement and takes about five minutes to perform.

Which Was the Son of ...

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The work was commissioned by the city of Reykjavík for the Voices of Europe, a choir of young singers aged 18–23 from each of the European Capitals of Culture in the year 2000. Unusually, to celebrate the millennium, nine cities were selected: Avignon (France), Bergen (Norway), Bologna (Italy), Brussels (Belgium), Helsinki (Finland), Kraków (Poland), Prague (Czech Republic), Reykjavík (Iceland), and Santiago de Compostela (Spain). The choir project was led by the city of Reykjavík and its chief conductor was Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir. Arvo Pärt’s first encounter with Iceland was in 1998, when he attended a performance given by the Hamrahlíð Choir and Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra of his Te Deum and other works in Reykjavík. This led to the Hamrahlíð Choir’s conductor, Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir, contacting Pärt about a possible commission for the Voices of Europe’s tour of all the European Capitals of Culture in August 2000. English was chosen as the language of the composition, being Europe’s actual lingua franca. The work was given its first performance in Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavík, on 26 August 2000, conducted by Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir, to whom the work is dedicated.