"I could compare my music to white light which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener." -Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt creates music of deceptive simplicity, and listening to his work can be a transformative experience. Imagine taking your ears on a retreat, and you’re some way to understanding why his work is so popular.
The Estonian composer underwent his own transformation in the 1970s, having explored dense avant-garde music in the early part of his career. He put himself through an eight-year creative exile, and emerged with a new, purer voice. The Arvo Pärt that many people are devoted to today (including R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe and Björk) creates music that cleanses. A sonic detox.
On 11 September the Estonian composer turns 80 years old. To honour the occasion Warner Classics will release a collectors' edition vinyl LP featuring benchmark performances of his most iconic works: Spiegel im Spiegel, Fratres, Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten and Tabula Rasa.
Spiegel im Spiegel(‘mirror in the mirror’), the most recognisable here, having been used widely in film, adverts and documentaries, evokes the endless reflections of an infinity mirror. Suspended over the piano’s limpid raindrops, it is as if the violinist is walking a tightrope between two very high towers on a still day – utter grace threatened by the greatest danger.
Whilst Pärt himself follows the Russian Orthodox Church, his music is sacred without being religious, spiritual without being mawkish. It has been dubbed ‘holy minimalism’, but it is whatever you want it to be. There’s the hum of wine glasses, gongs, icy string sounds. There are ghostly traces of his homeland and his own invented style, ‘tintinnabuli’, the music of little bells. And it’s not all crystal-spun delicacy: Fratres has choppy, Romantic soul, and Tabula Rasa is darkly turbulent at times.
Arvo Pärt’s work is at times deliciously easy to listen to, but only simple on the surface. Even if you’re in the heart of a city, Pärt’s music can transport you to a beautiful, shadowed space, or barefoot in a forest, or somewhere else entirely. He can take you wherever you want to go.
The Sound of Arvo Pärt will be released as a limited-edition LP on 16 October.
