ARVO PÄRT Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten
“ I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played .” – Pärt
ABOUT THE COMPOSER
Born 1935 in Paide , Estonia
• Pärt began his formal musical education at age seven and by the time he was in his early teens was writing his own compositions .
• After serving his mandatory military service in the Soviet A rmy , Pärt attended Tallinn Conservatory in Estonia where he studied composition . Upon graduating , he worked as a sound producer for the Estonia Public Broadcasting .
• Pärt started to gain recognition for his work , but his reception in the Soviet Union was complicated . He eventually came under scrutiny by the Soviet regime , and his music was unofficially denounced , leading to it temporarily disappearing from concert halls .
• In 1980 , Pärt was forced to emigrate with his wife and two sons to Vienna and eventually Berlin , where he remained for 30 years .
• Pärt eventually moved back to Estonia in 1991 , after the country gained independence .
• He developed an original style called tintinnabuli ( latin for “ little bells ”) that is influenced by the bells and pure voices of medieval church music .
• Pärt ’ s work has had a considerable influence on contemporary music , and between 2011-2018 , he was the most performed living composer .
THE WORLD AT A GLANCE
1977
MUSIC The Newport , Montreux , and North Sea Jazz Festivals all start
FILM Star Wars : Episode IV - A New Hope
FUN FACT
Arvo Pärt ’ s music has been used in several famous movies such as The Avengers : Age of Ultron , The Place Beyond the Pines , and There Will Be Blood .
ABOUT THE PIECE
• Pärt wrote this work for string orchestra and bell the year after Benjamin Britten ’ s death .
• The work is an early example of his tintinnabuli style , inspired by early chant music .
• The piece begins and ends with composed silence . Pärt had a fascination with silence throughout his life claiming , “ Silence is the pause in me when I am near to God .”
• Pärt felt a kindred spirit with composer Benjamin Britten . He believed his music contained a certain purity and hoped to meet the composer one day , which sadly never happened . Cantus was composed as an elegy to mourn the composer ’ s death , which deeply affected Pärt . The haunting work lives on as one of Pärt ’ s most famous pieces .
LITERATURE Stephen King ’ s The Shining
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BSO SESSIONS | JANUARY 2021
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