Today I have the extremely rare pleasure to celebrate the 90th birthday of one of the world's most celebrated composers, Arvo Pärt. Pärt was born on September 11th, 1935, in the small town of Paide, in the short lived independent Estonia (1919-1939). He studied music as a child, composing his first music as a teenager. His musical studies were interrupted in 1955 as he fulfilled his mandatory military service. Afterwards, he entered the Tallinn Conservatory and studied composition with the Estonian composer Heino Eller, noted as the founder of Estonian symphonic music. He graduated in 1963. Pärt encountered many difficulties trying to work as a composer in the Soviet Union. He was already criticized as a student by the Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers, Tikhon Krennikov, for using forbidden serialist techniques in his 1960 work "Nekrolog", the first Estonian work to do so. During the 60s, Pärt composed music using serial and aleatoric techniques, which were popular in Western Europe, but banned in the Soviet Union.
However, Pärt was not satisfied with these methods, and this led to spiritual and creative crisis, which came to a head in 1968. He composed one of his most shocking works, "Credo", as almost a literal musical representation of this crisis. Because of "Credo"'s overt spirituality, Pärt was censured in the Soviet Union, and he fell mostly silent composing for the next eight years. He spent the time studying medieval and renaissance music. Pärt came back to composing in 1976, having developed a new, unique style of composing, which he named "tintinnabuli". He had an incredible efflorescence of creativity, composing several enduring masterpieces in a few years. This style of music, very much influenced by plainchant monophonic chant and medieval organum, which was polyphonic with usually two voices, one composed and perhaps improvising above a fixed plainchant voice, has proven extremely popular with a wide range of audiences with such works as his "Fratres" and "Tabula Rasa" from 1977, "Spiegel im Spiegel" from 1978 and many others. His music is often called "minimalist", but Pärt does not agree with that label, and neither do I. It is often very minimalist in its sparse structures and textures, but in simplifying the music, he pared it down to its essentials and it is always maximalist in its emotional reach and depth. For Pärt, all his music, whether it is liturgical or not, is concerned with the numinous. All of his music is striking, breathtaking, instilling a sense of wonder in listeners. In 1981, Pärt moved to Germany, where his music has been very well received. In Germany he also started his enduring collaboration with ECM records which released the first album of Pärt's music in 1984 and has released many more since. Pärt moved back to Estonia in 2010 where he still lives and composes. We will hear a selection of Pärt's music, beginning with 1968 "Credo".
| We have heard Arvo Pärt almost every week on my show for nearly 30 years, as my show's theme is his "Arbos" for brass, from the 2nd recording of his music on ECM released in 1987. We hear the piece in full to start today. |
| Arbos Arvo Part/Brass Ensemble Staatsorchester Stuttgart - Arbos - ECM |
| Pärt's "Credo" juxtaposes Bach's famous Prelude in C from the opening Prelude & Fugue of the "Well-Tempered Clavier" with serialist and aleatoric techniques. After the initial orchestral and choral statement of faith, we hear the Bach in unadulterated form. This is followed by orchestral statements which increase in intensity and distortion, until the piano and choir come back, increasing into a frenzy of violence and chaos, then the pure Bach prelude returns, bringing order and peace back to the violence. This was the last work Pärt composed using serial and aleatoric techniques. |
| Credo Arvo Part/Boris Berman, Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus, Neeme Jarvi - Collage - Chandos |
| After the chaos and violence we begin the next set with "Fur Alina", the first work in the new tintinnabuli style Pärt introduced in 1976. It represents a dramatic shift away from the violence of "Credo" to his new equanimity. Following this, one of his most popular pieces, "Fratres", which has been performed in many different versions. The original, in 1977, was for string quartet or wind quintet, but Pärt, and a few others, have arranged versions for many other combinations. We will hear one of my favourites, for piano and cello. In this set we will also hear exquisite music for voices and organ and ending with the orchestral "La Sindone", which shows Pärt's mature style is not always still, but can have passionate climaxes of almost Brucknerian scope. |
| Fur Alina Arvo Part/Ralph van Raat - Piano Music - Naxos |
| Fratres for cello and piano Arvo Part/France Springuel, Mireille Gleizes - Fratres - Telarc |
| An den Wassern zu babel saben wir und weintern Arvo Part/The Hilliard Ensemble, Christopher Bowers-Broadbent - Arbos - ECM |
| La Sindone Arvo Part/Estonian National Symphony Ochestra, Tonu Kaljuste - In Principio - ECM |
| In this next set, we will hear two larger works by Pärt separated by three decades. His fourth symphony from 2008, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its then director Esa Pekka Salonen. This was Pärt's first symphony since developing his tintinnabuli style and it is magnificent. We will conclude with his 1977 masterpiece "Tabula Rasa", a concerto for two violins, prepared piano, and chamber orchestra. This was the first work released by ECM in 1984. It is in two movements with a remarkably passionate and romantic first movement. But it is the second movement and its staggering and haunting beauty which defies words. |
| Symphony No. 4 Arvo Part/Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen - Symphony No. 4 - ECM |
| Tabula Rasa Arvo Part/Lesley Hatfield, Rebecca Hirsch, Ulster Orchestra, Takuo Yuasa - Tabula Rasa - Naxos |
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First word out of my mouth after that first piece of music was the same word you used David........"incredible" Again, you have blown my mind with another introduction and homework. Thank you !! Today would have been Drake's 15th birthday. I promised him if he made it to 15 I would buy a huge birthday cake and we would invite all our neighbours and friends that he had adopted when we moved here And that is exactly what I am doing this evening. I bought a huge rainbow cake yesterday for the occasion. Dog guy to dog guy.
2:29 PM, September 11th, 2025