Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt (11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of classical and sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. Pärt has been the most performed living composer in the world for 5 consecutive years.
Arvo Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia. His musical studies began in 1954 at the Tallinn Music Secondary School Read Full BioArvo Pärt (11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of classical and sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. Pärt has been the most performed living composer in the world for 5 consecutive years.
Arvo Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia. His musical studies began in 1954 at the Tallinn Music Secondary School, interrupted less than a year later while he fulfilled his National Service obligation as oboist and side-drummer in an army band. He returned to Middle School for a year before joining the Tallinn Conservatory in 1957, where his composition teacher was Professor Heino Eller. Pärt started work as a recording engineer with Estonian Radio, wrote music for the stage and received numerous commissions for film scores so that, by the time he graduated from the Conservatory in 1963, he could already be considered a professional composer. A year before leaving, he won first prize in the All-Union Young Composers' Competition for a children's cantata, Our Garden, and an oratorio, Stride of the World.
Today Arvo Pärt is best known for his choral works, which he started to produce in the 1980s, after his emigration from the former Soviet Union to Germany, Berlin. Before that he had written his most recognised works from the 1970s, Fratres, Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, and Tabula Rasa. In 1978 Pärt composed Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in Mirror).
Pärt's oeuvre is generally divided into two periods. His early works ranged from rather severe neo-classical styles influenced by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Bartók. He then began to compose using Schoenberg's 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, Pärt entered the first of several periods of contemplative silence, during which he studied choral music from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.
The spirit of early European polyphony informed the composition of Pärt's transitional third symphony (1971); thereafter he immersed himself in early music, re-investigating the roots of western music. He studied plainsong, Gregorian chant, and the emergence of polyphony in the Renaissance. The music that began to emerge after this period was radically different. This period of new compositions included Fratres, Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, and Tabula rasa.
Pärt describes it as tintinnabuli: like the ringing of bells. The music is characterised by simple harmonies, often single unadorned notes, or triad chords which form the basis of western harmony. These are reminiscent of ringing bells. Tintinnabuli works are rhythmically simple, and do not change tempo. The influence of early music is clear. Another characteristic of Pärt's 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 St John Passion, Te Deum, and Litany. Choral works from this period include Magnificat and The Beatitudes.
A new composition, Für Lennart, written for the memory of the Estonian President Lennart Meri, was played at his funeral service on 2nd April 2006. In response to the murder of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow on 7th October 2006, Pärt declared that all his works performed in 2006-2007 would be in commemoration of her death.
Pärt was honoured as the featured composer of the 2008 RTÉ Living Music Festival in Dublin, Ireland. He was also recently commissioned by Louth Contemporary Music Society to compose a new choral work based on St Patrick's Breastplate, to be premiered in 2008 in Louth, Ireland.
Arvo Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia. His musical studies began in 1954 at the Tallinn Music Secondary School Read Full BioArvo Pärt (11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of classical and sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. Pärt has been the most performed living composer in the world for 5 consecutive years.
Arvo Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia. His musical studies began in 1954 at the Tallinn Music Secondary School, interrupted less than a year later while he fulfilled his National Service obligation as oboist and side-drummer in an army band. He returned to Middle School for a year before joining the Tallinn Conservatory in 1957, where his composition teacher was Professor Heino Eller. Pärt started work as a recording engineer with Estonian Radio, wrote music for the stage and received numerous commissions for film scores so that, by the time he graduated from the Conservatory in 1963, he could already be considered a professional composer. A year before leaving, he won first prize in the All-Union Young Composers' Competition for a children's cantata, Our Garden, and an oratorio, Stride of the World.
Today Arvo Pärt is best known for his choral works, which he started to produce in the 1980s, after his emigration from the former Soviet Union to Germany, Berlin. Before that he had written his most recognised works from the 1970s, Fratres, Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, and Tabula Rasa. In 1978 Pärt composed Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in Mirror).
Pärt's oeuvre is generally divided into two periods. His early works ranged from rather severe neo-classical styles influenced by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Bartók. He then began to compose using Schoenberg's 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, Pärt entered the first of several periods of contemplative silence, during which he studied choral music from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.
The spirit of early European polyphony informed the composition of Pärt's transitional third symphony (1971); thereafter he immersed himself in early music, re-investigating the roots of western music. He studied plainsong, Gregorian chant, and the emergence of polyphony in the Renaissance. The music that began to emerge after this period was radically different. This period of new compositions included Fratres, Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, and Tabula rasa.
Pärt describes it as tintinnabuli: like the ringing of bells. The music is characterised by simple harmonies, often single unadorned notes, or triad chords which form the basis of western harmony. These are reminiscent of ringing bells. Tintinnabuli works are rhythmically simple, and do not change tempo. The influence of early music is clear. Another characteristic of Pärt's 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 St John Passion, Te Deum, and Litany. Choral works from this period include Magnificat and The Beatitudes.
A new composition, Für Lennart, written for the memory of the Estonian President Lennart Meri, was played at his funeral service on 2nd April 2006. In response to the murder of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow on 7th October 2006, Pärt declared that all his works performed in 2006-2007 would be in commemoration of her death.
Pärt was honoured as the featured composer of the 2008 RTÉ Living Music Festival in Dublin, Ireland. He was also recently commissioned by Louth Contemporary Music Society to compose a new choral work based on St Patrick's Breastplate, to be premiered in 2008 in Louth, Ireland.
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Spiegel im Spiegel
Arvo Pärt Lyrics
We have lyrics for these tracks by Arvo Pärt:
Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten (Instrumental)…
De Profundis De profundis clamavi ad te Domine Domine exaudi vocem meam f…
Es sang vor langen Jahren Es sang vor langen Jahren (Clemens Maria Brentano) Es sang …
Parce mihi domine Parce mihi Domine Parce mihi, Domine, nihil enim sunt dies…
Procedentem sponsum Procedentem sponsum Procedentem sponsum de thalamo; Laude di…
Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus. Dominus deus Sabaoth. P…
The lyrics can frequently be found in the comments below, by filtering for lyric videos or browsing the comments in the different videos below.
ehabs07
To me, this evokes images of somehow being able to travel thousands of miles and enter my beautiful but war-torn country of Syria, traversing invincibly through the bullets, shells, rubble, and bodies to reach my childhood home, and the long demolished house of my grandmother, in a world where she is somehow alive again, in a world when I can still smell the beautiful aroma of her jasmine tree and her morning coffee, and hear the wind whistle through her tree-filled backyard in the star-filled night sky. Embarking on this journey through time is impossible except in my dreams, as I keep waking up to the realization that things have changed. They always do...
This piece simply but perfectly portrays the mystical realization, through an out-of-body experience, of somehow glancing at your own physical being as well as your surroundings and the whole world, with an almost impossible paradoxical dichotomy of simultaneous attachment and detachment. That beautiful dichotomy state that draws you to observe, through a bird's eye view, the oddly sad irony of our world's randomness, makes you also deeply appreciate the ephemeral nature life as a whole, the briefness of episodes in our lives of that we thought will never end, the transient physical being, and the omnipresence of what is left behind, after we are physically gone...
You can be a believer in a supreme being and believe that, after we depart our physical bodies, we will be ultimately souls that will traverse our boundless universe on a trip to the heavens, like a feather that the wind carries far away. You can also be a skeptic and believe that we are but atoms that will someday become part of a tree or otherwise aimlessly travel the deep ends of space on a haphazard quest to a planet far away, where we will be part of a new physical body in an alien world.
That dichotomy leads to other dichotomies, those of hope and despair, those of fear and comfort, those begging to know the whys of the complexity of being human and those realizing that being human is simply about living in voluntary and involuntary dichotomies, after all. Amid all the randomness emerges a common theme, that of entropy and the constancy of change. It makes me peacefully cope with the fact that I will likely no longer be able to enjoy those poignant evenings at my family's peaceful summer house, which is now illegally occupied by foreign fighters and their families. It makes me more steadfast in planting my roots and leaving my footprints all over again, in a different place, at a different time, never looking back for fear of crying.
Only a genius like Arvo Pärt can take you on this trip through the powerful simplicity of his piano notes. And only a transformative artist can make one piece mean something different to each of us.
Dominic Bradburn
I appreciate this will probably not be read by many, and that's okay, it's more for me anyway. I have had a very difficult past few years, especially this year, i have lost relationships, love ones, and jobs. I have spent all year practically iscolated from society in my room wallowing in despair and self pity. I have on a couple of occasions come close to calling it a day with life.
The only thing that has brought be back was the look on my dogs face in those moments of feeling empty and worthless. He looks at me like im the best person on the planet. And it makes me continue on for his sake. In many ways he has been my guardian angel, I don't have much else other than him. This song reminds me of those moments, whilst also giving me a feeling of courage to continue, just as my dog does..
To anyone who feels iscolated and alone, don't give up. There will most certainly be better days to come, and better people in your life. And if maybe you feel too alone to some up the strength, maybe get a dog? Not many things can make you feel as valued as them smiling right at you.. Thanks for reading to those who did, I start my first job in over a year next week, things may work out yet. Much love
Diogo Dias
Stay strong and positive! 🤜🏾🤛🏾
Maria Dolors Izquierdo
Of course you're not alone. Many a time the only face telling me I must go on has been that of my dog too. I was one and a half year with no job at all. I teach English and in the end I've learnt how to do it online.Now I start to teach face to face again, but it has been a grey, gruesome pandemic time we have had to cope with; we all have lost beloved people and it has been really hard to understand. Just let's struggle again; that's what they would like us to do. Good luck, Dominic!
Bob Hildebrand
I'm 77, I've had a good life but my wife passed on eleven years ago and the hurt never ends. I plug along and listening to this piece of music and similar works helps. I probably should get a dog.
So everyone hang in there!
Jan Rostworowski
Good luck, life is worth in every moment of the journey
Sir Robert COWLEY
God sees your heart and so do we. I play Spiegel im Spiegel frequently on my FM - Classical Radio Programme in Australia and I have never played it without tears of Joy fall from my Eyes. It is about the most healing piece of music I know. You are a beautiful person, so keep living, not just for your beautiful dog, but for all of us too, because you bless us richly. Robert Cowley [Captain Ret/d]
goshmargo
I took care of my Mom for almost 8 years. Hardest thing I ever did. The last few months I discovered this piece. I would turn my Mom on her side and give her her back rub and then do all the range of motion listening to this over and over, telling her what an awesome Mom she was. I knew by this point she never liked herself, but I was gonna let her know over and over how awesome she was. Thank you for making our bag lunches every single day. And anything else I could think of. When she passed the room glowed. Thank you Mom.
Braulio Rodríguez
You made me cry bro
Roo&Doo
Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
Steven Wyatt
@chivauk keep fighting the fight and pushing the plight xx the worst thing in this world is that nothing, nothing lasts forever!
I'm close to where you are and I've never been as heartbroken in my life waiting for the inevitable but nor knowing when its coming 😔😢