{"id":1772,"date":"2017-03-31T16:43:51","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T16:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/vccs-tcc-music-rford\/?post_type=chapter&p=1772"},"modified":"2020-04-11T21:52:21","modified_gmt":"2020-04-11T21:52:21","slug":"arvo-part","status":"web-only","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/vccs-tcc-music-rford\/chapter\/arvo-part\/","title":{"raw":"Arvo Part","rendered":"Arvo Part"},"content":{"raw":"\u00a0<\/span>Arvo P\u00e4rt\u00a0enjoys enormous popularity for a \u201cclassical\u201d composer. His works are often categorized as holy minimalism though he does not use that term when speaking of his own music. Notice the impact and influence in his personal history of composers and styles we have already studied: early 20th century techniques (including twelve-tone), Soviet artistic repression, minimalism, Medieval chant, and Renaissance polyphony.\r\n

Introduction<\/h2>\r\nArvo P\u00e4rt<\/b>\u00a0(born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of classical and sacred music.\u00a0Since the late 1970s, P\u00e4rt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music is in part inspired by\u00a0Gregorian chant.\r\n

Compositions<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\"Figure<\/a>\r\n

Figure 1. Arvo P\u00e4rt in 2011<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nP\u00e4rt\u2019s works are generally divided into two periods<\/strong>. (1)\u00a0 He composed his early works using a range of\u00a0neo-classical<\/a>\u00a0styles influenced by\u00a0Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Bart\u00f3k.(2)\u00a0 He then began to compose using Schoenberg\u2019s twelve-tone technique and serialism. This, however, not only earned the ire of the Soviet establishment, but also proved to be a creative dead-end. When early works were banned by Soviet censors, P\u00e4rt entered the first of several periods of contemplative silence, during which he studied choral music from the 14th to 16th centuries.\u00a0In this context, P\u00e4rt\u2019s biographer, Paul Hillier, observed that \u201cHe had reached a position of complete despair in which the composition of music appeared to be the most futile of gestures, and he lacked the musical faith and willpower to write even a single note.\u201d\r\n\r\nListen to the Magnificat below\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/E5PMQmQDBEY\r\n\r\nThe spirit of early European polyphony informed the composition of P\u00e4rt\u2019s transitional Third Symphony (1971); thereafter he immersed himself in early music. The above work suggests his investigation of\u00a0 the roots of Western music, namely the renaissance. The texture is for the most part homophonic with little polyphony. Part also studied plainsong, Gregorian chant and the emergence of polyphony in the European Renaissance. Listen to the above work.\r\n\r\nThe music that began to emerge after this period was radically different. This period of new compositions included\u00a0Fratres<\/i>,\u00a0Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Tabula Rasa.<\/i>\u00a0P\u00e4rt describes the music of this period as tintinnabuli\u2014like the ringing of bells.\u00a0Spiegel im Spiegel<\/i>\u00a0(1978) is a well-known example which has been used in many films. The music is characterised by simple harmonies, often single unadorned notes, or triads, which form the basis of Western harmony. These are reminiscent of ringing bells. Tintinnabuli works are rhythmically simple and do not change tempo. Another characteristic of P\u00e4rt\u2019s later works is that they are frequently settings for sacred texts, although he mostly chooses Latin or the Church Slavonic language used in Orthodox liturgy instead of his native Estonian language. Large-scale works inspired by religious texts include\u00a0St. John Passion<\/i>,\u00a0Te Deum<\/i>, and\u00a0Litany<\/i>. Choral works from this period include\u00a0Magnificat<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0The Beatitudes<\/i>.\r\n\r\nOf P\u00e4rt\u2019s popularity, Steve Reich has written: \u201cEven in Estonia, Arvo was getting the same feeling that we were all getting. . . . I love his music, and I love the fact that he is such a brave, talented man. . . . He\u2019s completely out of step with the zeitgeist and yet he\u2019s enormously popular, which is so inspiring. His music fulfills a deep human need that has nothing to do with fashion.\u201d\u00a0P\u00e4rt\u2019s music came to public attention in the West largely thanks to Manfred Eicher who recorded several of P\u00e4rt\u2019s compositions for ECM Records starting in 1984.\r\n\r\nInvited by Walter Fink, P\u00e4rt was the 15th composer featured in the annual Komponistenportr\u00e4t of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2005 in four concerts. Chamber music included\u00a0F\u00fcr Alina<\/i>\u00a0for piano, played by himself,\u00a0Spiegel im Spiegel<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Psalom<\/i>\u00a0for string quartet. The chamber orchestra of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra played his\u00a0Trisagion<\/i>,\u00a0Fratres<\/i>and\u00a0Cantus<\/i>\u00a0along with works of J.S. Bach. The Windsbach Boys Choir and soloists Sibylla Rubens, Ingeborg Danz, Markus Sch\u00e4fer and Klaus Mertens performed\u00a0Magnificat<\/i>andCollage \u00fcber B-A-C-H<\/i>\u00a0together with two cantatas of Bach and one of Mendelssohn.\r\n\r\nA new composition,\u00a0F\u00fcr Lennart<\/i>, written for the memory of the Estonian President, Lennart Meri, was played at Meri\u2019s funeral service on 2 April 2006.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Figure\r\n

Figure 2. Arvo P\u00e4rt and Nora P\u00e4rt in 2012<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nIn response to the murder of the Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow on 7 October 2006, P\u00e4rt declared that all of his works performed in 2006 and 2007 would be in honour of her death, issuing the following statement: \u201cAnna Politkovskaya staked her entire talent, energy and\u2014in the end\u2014even her life on saving people who had become victims of the abuses prevailing in Russia.\u201d\r\n\r\nP\u00e4rt was honoured as the featured composer of the 2008 RT\u00c9 Living Music Festival\u00a0in Dublin, Ireland. He was also commissioned by Louth Contemporary Music Society\u00a0to compose a new choral work based on \u201cSt. Patrick\u2019s Breastplate,\u201d which premiered in 2008 in Louth, Ireland. The new work is called\u00a0The Deers Cry<\/i>. This is his first Irish commission, having its debut in Drogheda and Dundalk in February 2008.\r\n\r\nP\u00e4rt\u2019s 2008\u00a0Symphony No. 4<\/i>\u00a0is named \u201cLos Angeles\u201d and was dedicated to Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It was P\u00e4rt\u2019s first symphony written since hisSymphony No. 3<\/i>\u00a0written in 1971. It premiered in Los Angeles, California, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on 10 January 2009,\u00a0and has been nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.\r\n\r\nListen to part 1 of this work. Be sure to read the notes at the You Tube site.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/Edb7bm3OnXs\r\n\r\nOn 10 December 2011, P\u00e4rt was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture for a five-year renewable term by Pope Benedict XVI.\r\n\r\nOn 26 January 2014, P\u00e4rt\u2019s\u00a0Adam\u2019s Lament<\/i>\u00a0won a Grammy for Best Choral Performance.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThis material is from the Santa Anna Course:\u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/vccs-tcc-mus121-1\/chapter\/avro-part\/<\/span>","rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span>Arvo P\u00e4rt\u00a0enjoys enormous popularity for a \u201cclassical\u201d composer. His works are often categorized as holy minimalism though he does not use that term when speaking of his own music. Notice the impact and influence in his personal history of composers and styles we have already studied: early 20th century techniques (including twelve-tone), Soviet artistic repression, minimalism, Medieval chant, and Renaissance polyphony.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

Arvo P\u00e4rt<\/b>\u00a0(born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of classical and sacred music.\u00a0Since the late 1970s, P\u00e4rt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music is in part inspired by\u00a0Gregorian chant.<\/p>\n

Compositions<\/h2>\n
\n

\"Figure<\/a><\/p>\n

Figure 1. Arvo P\u00e4rt in 2011<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

P\u00e4rt\u2019s works are generally divided into two periods<\/strong>. (1)\u00a0 He composed his early works using a range of\u00a0neo-classical<\/a>\u00a0styles influenced by\u00a0Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Bart\u00f3k.(2)\u00a0 He then began to compose using Schoenberg\u2019s twelve-tone technique and serialism. This, however, not only earned the ire of the Soviet establishment, but also proved to be a creative dead-end. When early works were banned by Soviet censors, P\u00e4rt entered the first of several periods of contemplative silence, during which he studied choral music from the 14th to 16th centuries.\u00a0In this context, P\u00e4rt\u2019s biographer, Paul Hillier, observed that \u201cHe had reached a position of complete despair in which the composition of music appeared to be the most futile of gestures, and he lacked the musical faith and willpower to write even a single note.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen to the Magnificat below<\/p>\n