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Arvo Pärt is one of the most important and most successful living composers of concert music of our times, this Estonian composer's body of work is both heartbreakingly fragile and deeply contemplative.His slow, spiritual music appeals to a wide audience, often young and outside the traditional classical sphere.

Pärt's oeuvre is generally divided into two periods, and he is best known for his more recent works. He began his career as a staunch serialist, using the style's dissonance as protest against his Soviet government. However, Pärt started composing in what he called his tintinnabulation (or tintinnabuli) method, which involves the constant presence throughout the work of a lone unchanging triad. The concept of “tintinnabulation,” derived from the Latin word for bells, which emphasizes individual notes, silence, and an even tempo. Dynamic shifts abound, but considering the amount of space employed the crests are like waves in a vast sea; the violence is as certain as the ensuing calm.
This new style resulted in music so radically different from that which had preceded it, that many observed that it seemed to have come from a different hand altogether.

Marked by a minimalist focus on subtle, exact tone, his musical language harkens back to the simple, deep harmonies of early music while remaining absolutely modern. The music does not change key throughout the course of a given composition, giving the work its characteristic timeless, meditative quality. Themes of repentance and rebirth surround much of his work, which, choral work in particular, is unabashedly spiritual and absolutely sublime.

Pärt has said that his music is similar to light going through a prism: the music may have a slightly different meaning for each listener, thus creating a spectrum of musical experience, similar to the rainbow of light.



Arvo Pärt - Fur Alina

Masterclass from Arvo Pärt