The Choral Compositions of Arvo Pärt As an Example of “God-Seeking” Through Music in Soviet Russia

THE CHORAL COMPOSITIONS OF ARVO PÄRT AS AN EXAMPLE OF “GOD-SEEKING” THROUGH MUSIC IN SOVIET RUSSIA

TATIANA SOLOVIOVA*

1. EMERGING FROM THE UNDERGROUND OF ‘OFFICIAL ATHEISM’ OF THE SOVIET ERA

Arvo Pärt was a representative of the underground music in the former Soviet Union. His music, like the works of many other musicians and artists, did not fit within the narrow bosom of Socialist Realism – the prevail- ing ideology of the time.1 He had to struggle in order to write the music he wanted. Nowadays there is no Soviet Empire anymore, and the compositions of Pärt represent “the face” of contemporary music. He is one of the few composers whose art music enjoys success similar to that of pop. He is widely known, and his works are being performed all over the world. Arvo Pärt was born in 1935 in Paide, near Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, one of the Western republics within the former USSR. Between the First and the Second World War this little country enjoyed a short period of in- dependence. Life for Pärt till 1980 was inseparably connected with his Motherland Estonia on one hand, and with Russia, which was the political and cultural dominant at that time, on the other hand. Pärt knew and loved national traditions, as well as he knew European and Russian culture: he called the composer Glazunov who taught his teacher Heino Eller ‘my musi-

* Tatiana Soloviova studied at Moscow State University and obtained her PhD in His- tory. She currently teaches Russian at the University of Oxford. She is a practicing musi- cian and conducts a church choir, while also studying musicology at the Goldsmiths Col- lege, University of London. 1 ‘Socialist Realism is a doctrine of artistic creation founded on the truthful, historically valid representation of reality in its revolutionary development…’, according to the Entsiklopedichesky Muzykal’nyi Slovar’ (Encylopedic Music Dictionary) (Moscow, 1966). Works of Socialist Realism should incorporate such qualities as accessibility to masses, op- timism, making use of folk traditions of the country, being based on classical traditions, representing Communist ideology (dostupnost’, optimizm, narodnost, klassitsizm, partiinost’).

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cal grandfather’, among friends who made a deep influence on him were Andrei Volkonsky and Alfred Schnittke, also musical dissidents. However, his technique of composition and his musical style – when it was formed he called it tintinnabuli (‘little bells’) – remains unique to him and it hardly contains any features of either Russian or Estonian music. Nowadays people speak about instantly recognisable “Pärtian” music. The main feature of his music written after 1972 – after the crisis that clearly divides his music career into “before” and “after” – is its religious, openly Christian theme. At the time of the Soviet Empire all people loyal to the regime had to share the official belief that ‘there is no God’. From oktyabryonoks and pio- neers (children from 7 to 14) to komsomol (Communist Unity of Young Peo- ple) and the Party members, everyone had to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime and to vow ‘to fight religious prejudices’. The degree and scope of official anti-religious propaganda can hardly be exaggerated and can hardly be imagined by those who did not live through that time. There were “guards” at the entrances to churches turning away young people who came there on days like Christmas and Easter. And if they had been noticed and reported, their Komsomol career was jeopardised. Bell ringing, because of its religious associations, was nearly banned. Even in children’s fairy tales such as Kornei Chukovsky’s ‘Oh, my God! What has happened?’ (Bozhe moi! Chto sluchilos’?) the title had to be changed into ‘What is this? What has happened?’. All artists were subjected to most vigor- ous censorship and any hints of religion were removed. Religious beliefs, being intrinsically anti-Communist, were deemed as bad as political opposition to the regime. Expressing religious views – “religious propaganda” – was equalled to a criminal offence and punished by various means. Under Stalin, it most often incurred the death penalty or decades in concentration camps. During Khrushchov’s “thaw” and Brezhnev’s “stagnation” periods it could have been imprisonment, psychiat- ric clinic or deprivation of all deserved rewards and financial hardships. “The thaw” seems to be a much milder period of Soviet history – truly so, but not as far religion is concerned. Under Khrushchov more churches were destroyed than in any other period of Russian history; in 1961 he announced on television that in 1980 he would show the world the last priest in Russia. Historians now acknowledge that at no other time the Christian Church has been persecuted to such an extent as in Soviet Russia.

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Yet, communist ideology left a terrible lacuna in people’s souls; only a few could satisfy themselves with Communist ideals; many suffered spiritual hunger. Many tried to discover inner meaning of life through art. Concert halls were deemed by many as temples. One can remember the famous tenor Kozlovsky who prayed and bowed near Bolshoi Theatre – for him and many others it was the Temple. During the Great Patriotic War concert performances of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony reminded contemporaries of ‘religious rites that helped to let out hidden thoughts and suffering gained for many years’.2 ‘The music was nothing less than an exalted liturgy…’, as was said of the Thirteenth Symphony of Shostakovich in 1962.3 Openly Christian art like that chosen by Pärt and some others was a very risky path and could ruin any career. But those who are born to seek cannot be stopped. For many religion represented conscience, morality and connection with the past.4 Pärt’s way to religion, to Christianity and later to East- ern Orthodoxy was long and wavy. In 1972, at the age of thirty-seven, he finished his “God-seeking” journey and joined the Russian Orthodox Church, which has remained his spiritual home.

2. BEFORE THE CRISIS: THE AVANT-GARDE COMPOSITIONS OF 1958-1968

Pärt’s first compositions were in the modernist style, following the path opened to Soviet composers by Andrei Volkonsky. At that time Pärt did not have any interest in early music, he thought of it as irksome. His teacher Eller recognised this and gave his student a special tuition so that Pärt could pass his exam in fugue in a short time.5 On the contrary, he was passionately studying those few 12–tone scores that he could find in the USSR. Pärt gained recognition straight from the beginning. His most famous compositions6 from that time are Nekrolog for orchestra (1960), Symphony

2 S. Volkov, Shostakovich i Stalin. Khudozhnik i Tsar (Moskva, Eksmo, 2004), p. 406. 3 Ibid. 4 See the BBC II Film on Contemporary Russian Composers 1980s. 5 P. Hillier, Arvo Pärt (Oxford, OUP, 1997), p. 28. 6 Apart from “serious” music, Pärt wrote music for children (for a while he was a Musical Director at the Pioneer Theatre in Tallinn) and fifty film scores. His early cantatas for children are, of course, tonal and cheerful – this is in accordance with the official rules and also reveals composer’s ability to write for children: vocal lines and harmonies are simple yet effective and expressive in an economical way and enhanced by colourful orchestration.

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no. 1 (dedicated to his teacher Eller, 1963), Diagrams for piano, Collage sur B-A-C-H for orchestra, Solfeggio for a capella choir (1964), Pro et Contra, concerto for cello and orchestra (written at the invitation of Mstislav Rostropovich), and Symphony no. 2 (1966). In the end of this period Pärt wrote Credo (1968) for choir, orchestra and piano that proved a pivotal point in his music career. Most of these compositions share the same 12-note row and serial technique, for what the composer was harshly criticised.7 His serial technique was not simply experimentation with pure sounds. ‘For Pärt it seems that serialism was primarily a useful means of pouring pitch sequences into musical ideas that originated elsewhere’.8 He wrote about the world around him. Much of his music from that period sounds dark and even depressive, offering no hint of relief or escape (e.g. Nekrolog, Pro et Contra, Symphony no. 2). Did he write about the gloomy reality of Soviet life, the moral degradation of people in the West, the tragic waste of lives, disharmony and vulnerability of human soul? Indeed, Pärt had a very acute feeling of evil and tragedy of the world. ‘He sets out with almost dia- bolical precision to destroy’, it is ‘a world that chronicles despair’.9 Often Pärt used collage – being the first in Soviet music to use this technique.10 Particularly striking is his quotation in Symphony no. 2: a beautifully orchestrated ‘Sweet dreams’ from the Children’s Album by Tchaikovsky. This gentle music surrounded by harsh dissonance tugs the strings of the heart. The composer juxtapositions cruelty and injustice of the world with purity and harmony, which human soul knows and looks for but cannot find. It is by no means “official” music; Pärt was a true artist thinking deeply about the controversies of life.11

7 Nekrolog was composed by means of serial technique – the first in Estonian music, second in Soviet music after Volkonsky. In March 1962 the Third All–Union Congress of Composers denounced dodecaphony. Pärt was bitterly criticised for his Nekrolog, for using ‘other people’s cast-off clothes' from the world of decaying Western bourgeoisie (Hillier, Arvo Pärt, pp. 40-46). He was accused of formalism. In the same way, in 1961, Andrei Volkonsky was attacked for his Musica Stricta – the first serial work by a Soviet composer. 8 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 46. 9 Ibid., p. 52. 10 Pärt was the first in the USSR to use aleatoric and collage technique. Cf. S. Savenko, ‘Arvo Pärt', in Istoriya otechestvennoi muzyki vtoroi poloviny XX veka (St-Peterburg, Kompositor, 2005), p. 286. 11 S. Savenko, ‘“Ottepel"' i muzykal'naya zhizn’ 50-60-godov’, in ibid., p. 15.

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The unusual work for that period is Solfeggio, an a capella choral work with no text as such (only sol-fa syllables) which uses the simplest material possible: notes of C major scale producing a constantly fluctuating texture of overlapping pitches. Hillier calls it prophetic12 as it comes very close to that technique that Pärt would use in the future.13 In 1968 he produced his major choral work Credo, the first choral work after the prize-winning early cantatas. This is the last of his collage works in which tonal and atonal forces are in confrontation. When Credo was firstly performed, it had a great success and was immediately encored. Then fol- lowed a scandal. In fact, even the first performance happened “by chance”.14 The scandal was caused not by serial technique: it was less of a problem at that time. It was the religious message heard from a Soviet composer. What was permissible in works by Stravinsky (Symphony of Psalms had already been performed in the USSR) was not acceptable from an insider who represented the country. Credo was banned in the Soviet Union for over a dec- ade. The last traces of “the thaw” were vanishing and the ideological climate was freezing. Pärt was asked many questions about ‘the political purposes’ of his new work.15 The composer was not concerned about politics. He was seeking answers to his internal questions. Pärt, who felt the strength of evil very acutely, came to Christianity perhaps in a way close to Sergey Bulgakov, famous Russian religious philosopher. Bulgakov said that he began to be- lieve in God when he realised how strong was evil. Pärt’s Credo was not a liturgical text of dogmas. The work was based on two texts: ‘Credo in Jesum Christum’ and ‘Audivistis dictum: oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente…’. The first text is his declaration of adherence to Christi- anity with its crucial dogma of Incarnation of God-Man. Pärt did not join any organised religion at that stage. In Estonia he had a choice of close ac- quaintance with Protestantism and Orthodoxy. Both were historically present in that country, the difference being that Orthodoxy was mainly confessed by peasants, while the German–orientated elite belonged to Prot-

12 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 49. 13 Ibid. 14 One of the more vigilant bureaucrats was absent at the time, and his colleagues had somehow failed to take notice of the work, despite the strong religious declaration of the title (Ibid, p. 58). 15 S. Savenko, ‘Maximalism of Arvo Pärt’, Russkaya muzykal'naya gazeta, no. 2, 1990, p. 11.

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estantism. At the stage Pärt only discovered “mere” Christianity. The second text can be interpreted as the reason why Pärt embraced the religion of Christ: for his determination to overcome evil by means of non-violence and self-sacrifice. Credo consists of three parts: 1. a tonal opening in C moving to G with the ‘Credo’ text; 2. a long central section of dodecaphony with ‘Audivistis dictum: oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente…’; 3. a tone conclusion reassert- ing the C-G-C axis with the words of Christ. The work is based on Bach’s Prelude in C major from Book I of Well-Tempered Clavier. In Credo one can easily feel confrontation between the forces of good and evil, their musical representations being the pure C major and aleatoric cacophony. Hillier writes that ‘it would be naïve to think that juxtaposed tonality and some degree of atonality are like characters in a melodrama’. ‘In Credo the two extremes of order and disorder, good and evil, are presented not as separate blocks of energy, but as linked forces, each containing the seeds of the oppo- site, with a continuum of gradual disintegration lying between them’.16 Hillier analyses the work in great detail, concluding, ‘No verbal description can do justice to the powerful effect of this work, which is one of Pärt’s finest’. ‘It is a compendium of techniques developed by the composer through the 1960 ties, and in its revelatory treatment of the C major triad, points forward to the music to come’.17 It is a hymn, as Hillier writes, not only to the splendour of Bach’s music, but also to the splendour of tonality, and finally to the splendour of religious belief. But also, Pärt had written himself into a cul-de-sac: how to move on from this point of regaining tonality without going back and simply coping music of old composers?

3. DISCOVERING TINTINNABULI

After Credo Pärt was silent for three years (or for eight years if one does not consider the few experimental pieces including The Third Symphony (1971).18 Not only he stopped composing, he also did not go to music performances

16 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 59. 17 Ibid., pp. 61-63. 18 Symphony no. 3 (1971) deserved much praise, particularly for its dramatic form and mastery of orchestration. ‘Had Pärt been content to continue in the vein of the Third Symphony, there is little doubt that he could have contributed nobly to the history of that curious phenomenon, the late twentieth century tonal symphony’ (ibid.). However, Pärt did not come back to that genre.

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and tried to separate himself from all musical noise.19 As Hillier says it was a silence with ‘a fermata and a large crescendo sign’. His life saw considerable changes: a new marriage and joining the Russian Orthodox Church. He went back to history and studied the very roots of music. He wrote many essays on the technique and style of early music.20 Pärt knew that early music could help him in his search of new style and technique that could represent his new concept of music. He said, ‘early music had the effect of a midwife for my new music’21 and ‘Gregorian chant taught me how the cosmic mystery is hidden in the art of combining two, three notes.22 In 1976 Pärt came out of his seclusion to full creative life with his own style that he calls tintinnabuli.23 Tintinnabuli technique underpins all later compositions of Pärt. Its com- pletion was announced in a little piano solo For Alina (1976). The most characteristic features are as follows. Firstly, systematic relationship of two voices, representing melody and harmony by means of blending diatonic scale and arpeggiated triads. The melody voice keeps moving, while the “underpinning” harmony voice fills in notes from the tonic triad (see Appendix: The Guiding Principles of Tintinnabuli). Secondly, the harmony is constant, it does not move, it may be described ‘as a single moment spread out in time’.24 As Pärt said, ‘I work with very few elements – with one voice, with two voices. I build with the most primitive materials – with the triad, with one specific tonality. The three notes of the triad are like bells. And that is why I called it tintinnabulation’.25 Pärt called tintinnabuli ‘an escape in the desired poverty’.26

19 Ibid., p. 74. 20 Andrei Volkonsky, when banned from writing music he wanted, also turned to early music: performed it on harpsichord and founded an early music group “Madrigal”. The Estonian counterpart “Hortus Musicus” was founded in 1972 by Andres Mustonen. They were the first to perform Pärt’s tintinnabuli compositions. 21 Ibid., p. 77. 22 Savenko, ‘Arvo Pärt’, p. 290. 23 There is an interesting issue on the possible mutual influence of Schnittke’s Requiem and Pärt’s works. Cf. A. Ivashkin, Alfred Schnittke (London, Phaidon Press, 1996), pp. 131-135. 24 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 90. 25 Ibid., p. 87. It was Nora Pärt, the composer’s wife, who in 1977 made an association between triads of the underpinning voice and resonating bells. Thus the term came into existence after the technique of composing had already been discovered. 26 Savenko, ‘Arvo Pärt’, p. 291.

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Pärt rediscovered tonality; and it means very much to him. Tonality, em- phasised through constant presence of major or minor triads is not just a symbol ‘but rather a manifestation of God’. In conversations with Hillier, Pärt said that for him the melodic voice always signified the subjective world, the daily egoistic life of sin and suffering. The tintinnabuli voice is the objective realm of Divine providence and forgiveness. The melodic voice appears to wander, but it is always supported by the tintinnabuli voice.27 The two voices are in reality one voice. One can think that the tintinnabuli triad represents the Holy Trinity. Pärt was irresistibly pulled toward tonality even when he was composing serial music. But at that time tonality was a symbol of order, truth, purity, not a means of composing. He did not compose tonal music as such (except the prophetic Solfeggio, which uses the diatonic scale yet avoids any use of tonal harmony). Pärt was not alone in mixing tonal and serial or other modernist elements or in quoting from earlier music styles. In fact collage, or more generally different levels of influence and cross-reference, may be re- garded as a quintessential twentieth-century style. But for Pärt it became increasingly clear that a synthesis of these different styles was not acceptable. He ‘desired a fully integrated means of musical expression that would come from within him, rather than be claimed from external sources.28 Musicologists, including Hillier and Savenko, are convinced that in Pärt’s music ‘the influence of early music is not a superficial imitation or borrow- ing' and ‘not an escape of modernity’.29 Savenko writes, ‘Only an avangardist could break connections with the past so abruptly. The heresy of sweet sound (blagozvuchie) was forbidden for a true artist, it was perceived as conformity and capitulation… a Soviet avangardist with all dissonances screamed against the totalitarian regime. But Pärt’s blagozvuchie was not capitulation – it had deepest spiritual foundation’.30 Hillier states that few among those composers who have felt a similar need for tonality, have articulated ‘a response as uniquely expressive or as self-defining as Pärt’s’.31 Savenko thinks that Pärt was always ahead of oth-

27 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 97. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., p. 23; Savenko, ‘Arvo Pärt’, p. 295. 30 Savenko, ‘Arvo Pärt’, p. 292. 31 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 91.

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ers.32 Is Pärt a minimalist? Hillier and Savenko spend much time discussing this question and their conclusions are somewhat ambiguous: it depends on how to define minimalism.33 Tintinnabuli was not accepted quickly and happily. It was strange and alien for both “socialist realists” and “modern- ists”. ‘They thought I was a little “cracked”’, the composer told them.34

4. MUSIC ABOUT CHRIST: PÄRT’S CHORAL COMPOSITIONS OF THE 1970-80TIES

As Pärt turned to religion he also turned to words. Choral work became his leading composition genre, and words have remained the source of almost all his most significant works since discovering tintinnabuli. In fact it is a sacred text that inspires Pärt to write music. The proof is the story told by Pärt himself about his long search for a text to write music about St. Ambrosius commissioned for the City of Milan. When he found his text he felt ‘fascinated and deeply influenced by this scene… and now felt able to accomplish the commissioned work’.35 ‘For me, words compose music’, Pärt summed up his view.36 His music is sacred in subject, but remains concert music – though it may require ‘a special kind of concert venue’ in which the focus is not on faces or personalities.37 Pärt has said that it was primarily the spirit of early music that interested him, not that the technical procedures by which it was put together.38 And it is the spirit of his music that is most captivating. Sim- plicity of his music does not mean simplicity of experience. The effect of Pärt’s music is most profound. No description of technicalities can do justice to the subtle and profound beauty of Pärt’s music and its internal strength. Many of Pärt’s first compositions in the tintinnabuli style were, however, non-choral: For Alina, Pari Intervallo (1976), Fratres, Tabula Rasa, Cantus in

32 Savenko, ‘Arvo Pärt’, p. 289. 33 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, pp. 12-17. 34 J. McCarthy, ‘An Interview with Arvo Pärt’, in Musical Times, 130/1753, March, 1989, p. 132. 35 M. Bowen, ‘Sleeve note for the CD Arvo Pärt Triodion Polyphony’, Stephen Layton, Hyperion, 2003, p. 5. 36 Savenko, ‘Arvo Pärt’, p. 294. 37 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 80. 38 McCarthy, ‘Interview’, p. 132.

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memoriam Benjamin Britten (1977). One of the reasons must have been the risk to his career; sacred compositions would have little chance of being performed in the USSR. The first choral works in tintinnabuli were written in 1976: Sarah was Ninety Years Old∞39, initially disguised under the title Modus; Calix (chalice, cup) – camouflage for a setting of Dies Irae – and An den Wassern zu Babel (Psalm 137). In 1977 the next “block” of choral works appeared: Missa Syllabica (an entirely syllabic setting of the ordinary of the mass); Cantate Domino (Psalm 95), a short and joyfully dancing piece; and Summa (a title disguising full liturgical Credo). Hillier who discusses all Pärt’s works at length considers Summa ‘one of the most intricately satisfying of the shorter tintinnabuli works’.40 All the tintinnabuli works were written by an Ortho- dox believer; but the language mostly used by the composer is Latin. Per- haps, he was seeking wider audience, inside and outside the USSR and the Orthodox world, and for this purpose Latin settings are the best means of communication. The other reason may be that Latin fits tintinnabuli better than other languages. In late 1970s Pärt’s music could not be bought or sold; he himself was denied permissions to go abroad to see performances of his works. There was more and more pressure on him. His friends tried to defend him, saying that Pärt was as precious to Estonians as Shostakovich to Russians. They were answered: Shostakovich is not so precious to us’.41 In 1980 Pärt and his family left for Israel, but stayed in Austria, and later settled in Berlin. Following De Profundis (1980) for male choir, in 1982 Pärt wrote one of his most monumental works Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Joannem. Hillier describes it as ‘the quintessential example of Pärt’s tintinnabuli music, in which the tintinnabuli principles function on a large scale to convey a long prose text of very special spiritual significance, and in such a way, and in such a manner that the two cannot be viewed sepa- rately’.42 Audiences all over the world have acclaimed the power and beauty of this piece. It is interesting to note that Pärt does not allow too much

39 The allegory of the old woman giving birth possibly hinted to Pärt’s own compara- tively late discovery of his own style (Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 75). 40 Ibid., p. 111. 41 Ibid., p. 119. 42 Ibid., p. 122.

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drama in his music. Most of the characters are represented by the choir; the only solo voices are those of Christ and Pilate. The textures he uses are reminiscent of icons, not of Renaissance pictures. ‘The ability of tintinnabuli music to render a text expressively yet free of wilful interpretation is here beautifully encapsulated’.43 Te Deum (1984) is non-biblical but a most respected text of Christian tradition. Pärt described it as representative of ‘immutable truths’. ‘I had to draw this music gently out of silence and emptiness’, said the composer.44 In Stabat Mater (1985) the composer once again chooses the text of vital importance for Christian theology. Savenko has made an interesting analy- sis that includes decoding the symbolism of numbers in this work.45 Miserere (1989, Psalm 50) is yet another “standard” Christian text. How- ever, this work stands out because of its dramatism: there are quiet mo- ments in this peace as well but they have been placed in such a way that they only emphasise the feeling of turmoil and restlessness. Nonetheless, the tintinnabuli principles are present here in their full strength as in the other works. While most of the Pärt’s choral works are about suffering, Magnificat (1989), another Latin setting, is one of the happiest pieces, of a non-penitential character.

5. MISSION TO THE WORLD: “PÄRTIAN” MUSIC IN 1990-2000

In the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s Pärt began to compose in languages other than Latin. In German there are Seven Magnificat Antiphons (1988); Berlin Mass for a choir and organ (or a string orchestra, 1990) and also works of a lesser scale. Interestingly, there is a piece for a solo alto on the poem by the German Romantic poet Clemens Brentano – Motette für de la Motte (1984). This is the first time that a “non-religious” text is set in tintinnabuli technique. This is not just a secular poem, but a text that has a deep spiritual meaning. There are several Slavonic pieces. Firstly, Two Slavonic Psalms (1984) in which, alongside tintinnabuli, there are some new ideas that control the melodic realm, including the shifts between major and minor – ‘just enough

43 Ibid., p. 131. 44 Ibid., p. 140. 45 Savenko, ‘Arvo Pärt’, pp. 302-303.

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harmonic colour to provoke the thoughts of Russianness!’.46 Pärt’s second piece in Slavonic bears a German title Nun eile ich zu euch (1989; the opening words, Gospodi, ne voznesesya sertsye moye, are from Ps 130,1). Both the mood and the technique here represent classical tintinnabuli.47 Thirdly, there is Bogoroditse Dyevo (1992) commissioned by King’s College, Cam- bridge and widely performed in UK. In this piece, one can hardly find any traces of tintinnabuli; it is mostly based on the traditions of Russian choral music: ‘a joyful work – quite as unexpected in the Pärt’s canon as the earlier Solfeggio had been’.48 Finally, Canon of Repentance (Kanon Pokayanen, 1997) for a choir a capella represents austere and ascetic Orthodox spirituality. There are also works in English. Pärt regularly spent time in England learning about bells and has his second home in Colchester where he took time to perfect his English. Among his finest compositions in English are Litany – Prayers of St John Chrysostom for Each Hour of the Day and the Night (1994); The Beatitudes (1990); I am the True Vine (1996). In the English setting And One of the Pharisees (1992) the use of recitation is more pro- nounced and similar to chant techniques of liturgical recitation. In Litany (1994) Pärt for the first time since Symphony no. 3 (1971) em- ploys a full orchestra alongside a mixed chorus and a solo quartet. He uses string and wind sections as further contrasted elements in an antiphonal manner and ‘also integrates them into a mixed orchestral palette that is richer than any tintinnabuli score hitherto’. Hillier states that this is a new development which also represents a challenge to the tintinnabuli style in its purest form, ‘the essence of which rests not upon specific instrumental col- ours but rather on an abstract musical design’.49 After Miserere (1989) critics also suggested that Pärt was moving into more complex exotic harmonic territory. ‘With clusters, compound chords and use of the augmented second interval, he seemed to be stretching the crucial characteristic boundary in his music between dissonance and consonance’.50 However, Pärt seems always to return back to his original principles. He may have changed them or even abandoned them in some pieces. But he always comes back. Among his recent works are Nunc Dimittis (2001);

46 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 180. 47 Ibid., p. 181. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., p. 198. 50 Bowen, ‘Interview’, p. 3.

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…which was the Son of… (2000); Littlemore Tractus (2001); My Heart’s in the Highlands (2000);51 and highly acclaimed Salve Regina (2002). Each work has a very specific identity, often using tintinnabuli principles in a manner unique to that work.52 In all of them the essential purity of the triad is given paramount importance, and the chords progressions are diatonic. At times tintinnabuli rules are not applied strictly, and yet ‘there is enough to make it unmistakably Pärtian’.53 Pärt’s music has undergone a remarkable stylistic evolution alongside his religious journey. His spiritual discoveries surely must be taken into serious consideration in order to understand his music. As Hillier writes: ‘Although the music does not insist upon ontological discussion – it does, after all, manifest itself powerfully as “pure music”, it is pointless to pretend that the forces that have motivated Pärt are somewhat exterior to a proper understanding of the composer and his work’.54 Pärt himself stated several times that his tintinnabuli was shaped thanks to early music and to that spiritual support that he found in the Orthodox Church.55 To understand Pärt’s music deeper one has to get acquainted with several “ingredients” of the Ortho- dox spirituality, e.g. 1) the tradition of mysticism and hesychasm, i.e. silent prayer. (Silence is absolutely essential in Pärt’s music.); 2) the art of bell-ringing. (Pärt studied it in depth in Russia and in Eng- land.); 3) the principles of icon painting. (‘His music derives both aesthetically and spiritually from its function as a sounding icon’.)56

6. “GOD-SEEKING” AS RUSSIAN NON-LIBERTY

Pärt’s discovery of religion was by no means an extraordinary phenomenon in USSR. Russian intelligentsia, including musicians, could not stop explor- ing the world of faith and religion. Here are some examples.

51 This is another “secular” setting. Arvo Pärt learnt this text by Robert Burns in child- hood: ‘the text has resonated within me the whole of my life’ (Ibid., p. 9). 52 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 163. 53 Bowen, ‘Interview’, p. 3. 54 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 1. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid., p. 3.

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Even Shostakovich, when being forced to join the Communist Party, confessed that he had religious beliefs. His music does not have any direct references to the question of faith. However, the spirit and structure of such works as Symphony no. 14 (reminiscent of Requiem), his frequent use of Znamenny chant, his fascination with Jewish music (secular in form, e.g. dance, and yet always sacred in meaning) – all of theses strongly suggests that he was thinking in that direction. Andrei Volkonsky, the first Soviet composer to produce music in 12 tone technique, was also the first to write about Christ in his exquisite Mirror Suite (1960) on the poem by Garcia Lorca. Hiding under the wall of folklorism and “Russianness” such officially recognised composers like Georgiy Sviridov and Valeriy Gavrilin wrote their choral works expressing their adherence to the Orthodox Church. Alfred Schnittke was deeply interested in mysticism and later in Eastern Orthodox teaching in particular. His Requiem – a brilliant example of God-seeking in Soviet Russia – was allowed thanks to the fact that it was a part of the his- toric play Don Carlos. Desire to understand the nature of Divine and human is vivid in Edison Denisov’s The Sun of Inks on the poem of Gabriela Mistral and in his Requiem. Most of the works of Sofia Gubaidulina bear religious names. Gubaidulina understands religion as re-storing a liga, a connection with the Creator. For her, there is no higher task for an artist than finding and restoring this connection.57 There are many other Russian composers who work on “sacred” themes. These are just few examples to mention. In fact, religious music of Russia in the second half of the XXth century is becoming a subject of special research.58 It is interesting to note that one of the prominent subjects in the research is the theme of Requiem in Soviet music. In most cases, music of Russian composers has a message to convey to its listeners. It is always more than pure sound. Russian culture, albeit litera- ture, theatre, painting or music is always more than pure art, more than ex- quisiteness of technique and beauty of form. It is not necessarily secret dia- ries of the nation, like in case with many works by Shostakovich, but there is often a reaction to reality, a personal involvement, response and a message. In his article ‘The Paradox of Russian Non-Liberty’ Alexander Ivashkin emphasises this “God-seeking” tendency of Russian culture: ‘We

57 BBC II Film Rose and Fire, on Sofia Gubaidulina. 58 N. Gulyanitskaya, ‘Newest Religious Music in Russia’, in Istoriya, p. 448.

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treat music as something more than just music; it is a means to express something spiritual… in Russia we have never had an art for the sake of art’.59 Vladimir Martynov expresses a similar view: ‘Every nation has its own mission: Greece developed an idea of beauty, of perfection; Rome created the concept of law. Israel and Russia are dealing with the understanding of God’.60 Thus, the turn to religion for ‘Russian culture-minded’ people is natural. Belonging to the bosom of Russian culture means that the artist is never free from eternal questions like ‘what do we live for’, ‘what is good and evil’, ‘what is death’, ‘what is God’. The range and intensity of these problems and passions is much greater than in any European art. It is essen- tially a God-orientated culture. Savenko writes that those are right who consider Pärt to be a Russian culture artist as ‘his music has deepest spiritual foundation’. ‘Music for him was never only an aesthetic sphere, a game in beats’.61 For Pärt, Russian language was and is the language of highest spiritual issues, and his life is closely connected with the Russian Orthodox Church, e.g. with Kiev and Pskov Monasteries.62 To the question on how Russian Orthodox religion has influenced his music Pärt answered, ‘Religion influences everything. Not just music, but everything’.63 Despite the horrendous circumstances, the period of 1970-1980s proved to be very fruitful for Russian culture. And as the philosopher Grigoriy Pomerants, supported by musicologists, states, ‘it is in the field of music that our culture demonstrated then its highest achievements’.64

Appendix I: The Guiding Principles of Tintinnabuli Style 1) The Basis of tintinnabuli style is a two part texture consisting of a “melodic” voice (M-voice) mostly by step from or towards a central pitch and a “tintinnabuli” voice (T-voice) sounding the notes of the tonic triad.

59 A. Ivashkin, ‘The Paradox of Russian Non-Liberty’, The Musical Quarterly, 76/4 (1992), p. 545. 60 Ibid., p. 547. 61 Savenko, ‘Arvo Pärt’, p. 292. 62 W. Sandner, Sleeve Notes to the LP Tabula Rasa ECM New Series 1275 1984 63 McCarthy, ‘Interview ‘, p. 132. 64 T. Levaya, ‘1970-1980 gody. Predmety novoi epokhi ili dialog s 60-mi godami’, in Istoriya, pp. 447-480.

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2) The composition of the M-voice always comes first. It may range from the basic patterns of scales strictly by step to varieties of reiter- ated pitches or variations on the scale pattern with small interval leaps and melodic turns. Hillier thinks it is possible to condense the range of possibilities for M-voice into four basic patterns, which are ‘simply scales ascending or descending, to or from a central pitch’.65 This central pitch is most often the tonic (it can be one of the other pitches of the triad). These patterns are combined to create melodic phrases. 3) T-voice is always a triadic pitch either above or below M-voice, and it either remains fixed or may alternate above and below M-voice. There are theoretically three possible manners in which the T-voice positions can be applied.66 Although Pärt discovered the tintinnabuli principle and codified it in his musical works, he regards it as something more than a subjective invention, something having indeed an objective reality of its own. In discussions with Hillier the composer explained his view that the M-voice always signifies the subjective world, the daily egoistic life of singing and suffering; the T-voice is the objective realm of forgiveness. This dualism represents body and spirit, earth and heaven, but the two voices are in reality one voice, ‘a two- fold single entity’.67

Appendix II: Selection from Pärt’s Discography Fratres / Cantus / Tabula Rasa Gidon Kremer and Tatjana Grindenko (violins), Keath Jarrett (piano), Alfred Schnittke (prepared piano), 12 cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Staatsorchester Stuttgart conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Saulus Sondeckis. ECM New Series 1275 (1984) Arbos / And den Wassern zu Babel sassen wir und weinten / Pari Intervallo / De Profundis / Es sang vor langen Jahren / Summa (for 4 voices) / Stabat Mater The Hilliard Ensemble directed by Paul Hillier. Gidon Kremer, Vladimir Mendelssohn etc. (violins), Brass Ensemble of the Staatsorchester Stutt- gart, Dennis Russell Davies (conductor). ECM New Series 1325 (1987) 65 Hillier, Arvo Pärt, p. 95. 66 Ibid., p. 93. 67 Ibid., p. 96.

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Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Joannem The Hilliard Ensemble, The Western Wind Chamber Choir and Instru- mental Ensemble, Paul Hilllier (conductor). ECM New Series 1370 (1988) Miserere / Festina Lente / Sarah Was Ninety Years Old The Hilliard Ensemble, The Western Wind Chamber Choir, Paul Hilllier (conductor). Orchester der Beethovenhalle Bonn, Dennis Russell Davies (conductor). ECM New Series 1430 (1991) Collage sur B-A-C-H / Summa (for strings) / Wenn Bach Bienen Gezüchtet Hättet / Fratres / Symphony no. 2 / Festina Lente / Credo Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus with Boris Berman (piano), Neeme Järvi (conductor). Chandos CHAN 9134 (1993) Te Deum / Silouan’s Song / Magnificat / Berlin Mass Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir; Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tone Kaljuste (conductor). ECM New Series 1505 (1993) De Profundis / Solfège / Missa Sillabica / Summa (choral version) / Magnificat / Cantate Domino / Seven Magnificat Antiphones / And one of the Pharisees / The Beatitudes The Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier (conductor). Harmonia Mundi USA HM 7182 (1996) Kanon Pokajanen Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tonu Kaljuste (conductor). ECM New Series 4578342 (1998) Dopo la vittoria / Nunc dimittis / …which was the Son of … / I am the true vine / Littlemore Tractus / Triodion / My heart’s in the Highlands / Salve Regina Polyphony, Stephen Layton (conductor). Hyperion, CDA 6737775 (2003) For the full discography to date see: www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/articles/part/disco.html

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