Arvo Pärt
Tabula Rasa

A work of art is all the greater the better it manages to express what its creator has inside, and sometimes it manages to express much more. Therefore, it doesn't matter what instrument one uses to make art, nor how one arrives at it, the important thing is the achieved end. A work of art can also be ugly, it may not correspond to one's mood and inclinations, this is independent of its greatness, for this reason, a song can also be made with noises or monuments with waste.

The greatness of Arvo Pärt lies in the fact that the keywords of his music are "simplicity", "silence", "beauty", "depth". He manages, as often the greatest artists do, to deeply move with sobriety and humility.

Arvo Pärt calls his style tintinnabuli and says about it: "Tintinnabuli is an area I sometimes wander into when I'm searching for answers about my life, my music, my work. In my darkest hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning. The complexity and multifaceted nature only confuse me, and I must search for unity. But what is this unique thing? And how can I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many forms – and everything unimportant slips away. Tintinnabuli is like that. Here I am, alone with silence. I have discovered that it is enough when even a single note is beautifully played. This single note, or a calm beat, or a moment of silence comforts me. I work with very few elements - one voice, two voices. I build with the most primitive materials - with the perfect chord, with a specific tonality. Three notes of a chord are like bells, and that's why I call this tintinnabuli".

Arvo Pärt was born on September 11, 1935, in Paide, Estonia, without having a precise religious education. He became a student of Heino Eller at the Tallin Conservatory. Living during the Soviet regime, he had few contacts with European and American musical avant-gardes. Around the age of thirty, he came into contact with the Darmstadt school. From here he became a great friend of Luigi Nono. Pärt became the first Estonian composer to experiment and disseminate serial techniques in his country along with dodecaphony. But shortly, dissatisfied with these techniques, he realized that atonality was not the right tool to express his musical needs. He then dedicated himself to studies on Gregorian chant and Baroque music, Bach became his passion and his unsurpassed myth. After a period of creative crisis that began towards the end of the '60s, he matured what is his idea of tintinnabuli and sacred music.

"This is my goal. Time and timelessness are connected. This moment and eternity are fighting among us. And this is the cause of all our contradictions, our obstinacy, our limited mentality, our faith, and our anguish".

Arvo Pärt is one of the few and greatest composers of sacred music of the 20th century, that sacredness immersed in the material and updated in the century where God is dead and where the artist expresses the need of "modern" man for a deep spirituality, and his personal realization of the existence of a God, in a relativist cultural climate that as such cannot afford to deny it. His works are "works of suffering", that true and deep suffering represented by the sacrifice of Christ for humanity, which therefore cannot be artificially recreated, but which everyone can find within themselves when they have to "carry the cross".

"It wouldn't have been difficult for the apostles to have lived in the Soviet Union. And there are wonderful people there like them. Heroism can flourish in that climate. But it is absolutely not necessary for people to live under such conditions. Perhaps [suffering] is more important for something that happens inside of us, beyond our own free will. It makes a difference in the way you think if one is hungry or full. Should we all become hungry for that reason? There is a level for us higher than being hungry or full. We should not allow ourselves to sink into these two extreme alternatives".

After the crisis period, in '77 the composer rises again with new compositions: "Tabula Rasa", "Fratres" in two versions, and "Cantus In Memoriam of Benjamin Britten". These pieces were published by the ECM label in 1984 in the album "Tabula Rasa" with illustrious musicians: Gidon Kremer on violin, Keith Jarrett on piano, Tatjana Grindenko again on violin, and Alfred Schnittke on prepared piano; also featuring various orchestras. These pieces are emblematic of Pärt's style; it is music that comes from heaven, evoking the past but transporting to something never heard before. It is that simple and ascetic music like a hermit, made of few elements yet capable of touching the heart, deeply marking the listener by gifting them a profound and unforgettable experience, it is certainly music that can change.

These compositions remain, in my opinion, among the highest works of art of the last century, about which it is truly difficult for me to speak as anything I can manage to say is too reductive and incomplete. I can only invite you to listen, being an intimate dialogue with oneself.

Regarding the piece "Tabula Rasa", Pärt says: "I am always afraid of new ideas," I said to Gidon. "Do you think it should be a slow piece?" Gidon said, "Yes, certainly!" And the piece was finished rather quickly. The orchestration recalls a piece by Alfred Schnittke that was about to be performed at the same time in Tallin. It's music for two violins, prepared piano, and strings. When the musicians saw the result they shouted, "Where is the music?" But they ended up playing it very well. It was very beautiful. It was quiet and beautiful".