Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten: Arvo Pärt (b1935)

Arvo Pärt was born in Järva County, Estonia. At the time of his birth Estonia was an independent Baltic state; in 1940, however, it was occupied by the Soviet Union, and there began a political domination which was to last for fifty-one years (notwithstanding a brief period of occupation by the Nazis) – a domination which impacted greatly on Pärt’s development. His early musical training was severely limited and subject to rigorous censorship from the political authorities. An inability to encounter external influence from other composers was a significant drawback – other than a handful of illegally obtained scores and tapes there was very little contemporary music to access.

Pärt’s musical training consisted of study at the Tallinn Conservatory, early employment as a sound recording engineer, and training as an oboist and side-drummer whilst carrying out the obligatory national service. Many of Pärt’s early compositions are radical experiments with prevailing European musical styles of the mid twentieth century. There are compositions which demonstrate the neo-classical techniques found in the works of Prokofiev and Stravinsky, and there are flirtations with the serialistic, or dodecaphonic, techniques of Schoenberg, and his pupils, Webern and Berg. There is music which demonstrates intense Expressionism and an almost aggressive attitude to dissonance.

Growing up in communist Estonia, Pärt found himself at odds with the political regime on every aesthetic and spiritual level. (This struggle was to last until he finally secured permission to emigrate, with his wife and two sons, in 1980, settling firstly in Vienna and later in Berlin where he currently lives.) Many of his early compositions were censored by the authorities. This led him to a period of contemplative silence during which time he wrote nothing, but studied Gregorian chant, early choral music and the development of polyphony into western music. He also made a deep and personal exploration of his own Russian Orthodox faith. This self-imposed creative exile lasted for eight years, and was broken by the composition of his third symphony.

The musical style which emerged was radically different from that of previous works. Highly minimalistic, Pärt himself labelled it tintinnabuli – or, “like the ringing of bells.” It is characterised by simple harmonies, unadorned notes or basic triads, reminiscent of the ringing of bells. The style is rhythmically simple, and there are no changes of tempo. The style is also associated with the works of Górecki and John Tavener. Pärt designed strict rules to control how the harmonic voices move with the melodic lines in his music, diktats which are as strict as serialism - ironically so, given his rejection of his previous avant-garde obsessions. Tom Service, in his essay on Pärt, argues that it is this austerity of process which makes Pärt's tintinnabulation a new use of tonality, even a new kind of tonality, and it explains why his music sounds simultaneously both ancient and modern, and why it embodies a genuine expressivity rather than a rehearsal of second-hand conventions.

In this second period of composition Pärt also found himself fascinated by sacred texts, and larger scale works include a Te Deum, a Magnificat, a setting of the Beatitudes and a St John Passion. Pärt was a great admirer of the music of Benjamin Britten, and three times during the 1960s and 1970s made arrangements to travel to the UK to meet Britten. On each occasion the Soviet authorities refused Pärt permission to travel. The Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten was written in 1977, shortly after Britten’s death, in homage to him, and is very typical of the tintinnabuli style.