Arvo Pärt

Benjamin Britten was born on St. Cecilia’s day, November 22, 1913, and died on December 4, 1976, one day before the 185th anniversary of the death of Mozart. Shortly after Britten’s death, the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt wrote:

In the past years we have had many losses in the world of music to mourn. Why did the date of Benjamin Britten’s death — December 4, 1976 — touch such a chord in me? During this time I was obviously at a point where I could recognize the magnitude of such a loss. Inexplicable feelings of guilt, more than that even, arose in me. I had just discovered Britten for myself. Just before his death I began to appreciate the unusual purity of his music — I had the impression of the same kind of purity in the ballades of [the Medieval composer] Guillaume de Machaut. And besides, for a long time I had wanted to meet Britten personally — and now it would not come to that.

Arvo Pärt’s music of astonishing simplicity and beauty is celebrated around the world to a degree rivaled only by that of the American minimalists. Pärt was the first Estonian composer to experiment with 12-tone serial music. In 1968, he provoked a scandal within the Communist Party by setting a Latin text based on his religious convictions: “Credo in Jesum Christum.” Censored and attacked, Pärt responded with a six-year self-imposed musical silence during which he immersed himself in medieval sacred music and the aesthetics of the Eastern church.

Cantus employs the simplest of ideas: Half of the ensemble slowly descends, step by step, down the Aeolian, a-minor scale, while other players outline the notes of the tonic triad. Throughout this procession, a funeral chime sounds at various intervals. The strings slowly complete their journey, reaching a long, penetrating crescendo as the bell strikes, unheard under the wall of sound. The strings cease playing, leaving the lingering resonance of the chime, paying homage to the immortal voice of an honored master.

— Andrew Clark