Arvo Pärt's music: not always a warm bath

What titles come to mind when you hear the name Arvo Pärt? Sonatine opus 1; Symphony No 1; Perpetuum mobile, or Fratres; Für Alina; Spiegel im Spiegel? My guess is the second set, because it was with pieces like this that Pärt conquered the world in the late twentieth century. Audiences flocked in droves to immerse themselves in his sonorous sound world, but critics spoke scornfully of a "warm bath" full of new-age kitsch. Today, Pärt is one of the most performed living composers. Next Tuesday, 24 November, I highlight Pärt's route to his 'new simplicity' during a lecture at VondelCS, the former Film Museum in Amsterdam.

Arvo Pärt (Paide, Estonia 1935) grew up in a dictatorship: already during World War II, in 1944 Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union. A bleak and intolerant wind had been blowing there for years, especially also in the arts. In 1948, barely three years after the victory over the Nazis and their callous persecution of so-called 'entartete Kunst', great composers like Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich were publicly pilloried for their 'formalistic perversions and anti-democratic tendencies'. In such a climate, there was little room for experimentation.

Pärt studied composition at the Tallin Conservatory, where he was taught the standard classical repertoire. The atonal music of modernists like Arnold Schoenberg was taboo. Pärt's earliest pieces, including the aforementioned Sonatine for piano solo, therefore have a classical character. They are entirely tonal and always return to a keynote - as a listener, you come safely "home". That does not mean, by the way, that these are dull little works. Those who, for instance, are Vier leichte Tanzstücke for piano will be immediately lit by the frisky atmosphere of these fairy-tale-inspired miniatures. [Tweet "Anyone who listens to Pärt's Vier leichte Tanzstücke for piano will immediately become cheerful."]].

In-socialist way of composing

As it goes, the young Pärt was also attracted to the most forbidden fruits, in his case those of the Western avant-garde. He studied smuggled-in scores and started incorporating the new compositional techniques used in them into his own pieces. In 1961, he caused a scandal with the orchestral work Neckrologist, the first Estonian composition made according to the twelve-tone system designed by Schoenberg.

In short, in twelve-tone music, all twelve semitones of the octave are placed in a series, which must sound in its entirety each time before it may be used again. No longer is one tone 'the boss' (the aforementioned keynote), but all tones are equal to each other. That this nevertheless in-socialist way of composing was so despised by the Soviets is a tragic form of irony. Neckrologist earned Pärt his first recognition in the West, but apparatchiks back home accused him of "Western decadence".

After this, Pärt experimented with so-called collage techniques, in which different musical styles collide, as it were. Thus, in Collage über B-A-C-H a lovely theme for oboe and harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach 'attacked' by fierce, heavily dissonant chords from a string orchestra. Pärt went furthest in 1968 in his grandly conceived Credo for choir, piano and orchestra: in it, a prelude by Bach is besieged by unusually dissonant harmonies from the orchestra. The premiere caused an even bigger scandal than Neckrologist, not only because of the music itself, but also because of the overt profession of faith: Pärt used Latin texts from Matthew's gospel and opens with the phrase 'Credo in Jesum Christum' (I believe in Jesus Christ).

Compositional impasse

The communist regime didn't want anything to do with religion and saw Credo as an open provocation. The political leaders felt personally attacked and engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with Pärt. Sometimes he was trampled on, sometimes he was praised - similar to how Shostakovich fared in Russia. But Pärt himself also appeared unhappy with the path he had taken: increasingly, he felt that 'atonal music is only suitable for writing conflictual music,' as he once said. After Credo he fell into a years-long compositional impasse.

He took up early music, such as Russian Orthodox church music, Gregorian chant and Renaissance Flemish polyphony. He said: 'Gregorian chant brought me a kind of cosmic secret, which reveals itself in the art of combining two or three notes.' This led in 1977 to an explosion of pieces in Pärt's now globally loved 'tintinnabuli' style, named after the bell-like sound of triads. Compositions such as For Alina for piano solo, Fratres for wind and string quintet and Spiegel im Spiegel for violin and piano set a gradually progressing melody against a background of euphonious harmonies and a slow rhythmic progression.

The rest is history. In 1980, Pärt moved to the West, where he embarked on a musical triumph that is still not over. Criticism has since died down, his music has appeared on countless CDs and his 80th birthday has been celebrated with an unprecedented number of concerts and commemorations.

He recently returned to Tallin again - where I encountered him a few years ago at a festival for new music. In all modesty, he sat on a rickety wooden bench in a tiny room, next to younger colleagues like Erkki-Sven Tüür and Helena Tulve. Concentrated, he listened to a performance of his opus 1 by a piano student. Afterwards, I shook Pärt's hand and thanked him for his beautiful piece. He responded with a delighted, almost shy smile.

VondelCS on 24 November 2015, 20.30 - 22.00, lecture on Pärt by musicologist Thea Derks, with a guest performance by Cello8ctet Amsterdam, chief guest of Opium on 4 later that evening. Info and reservations via this link.