18 november 2010

The Essential and Phenomenal Arvo Pärt

As a tribute for his 75th birthday, this lecture analyses the extraordinary music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. In 1976 Pärt developed a new creative process reminiscent of sounding bells; hence it’s appellation ‘tintinnabuli.’ The technique is seemingly simple, comprising just two musical lines, one of which moves in largely stepwise motion and the other which moves through the notes of a triad. This paper explores how Pärt uses this new technique, with particular reference to his innovative setting of the St. John Passion, composed in 1982. I suggest that far from being simple, tintinnabuli is a process that affords a large and subtle range of consonance and dissonance which Pärt uses not only to address superficial aspects of text but also to negotiate tension and relaxation on micro- and macro-levels. This paper examines how Pärt’s compositions have become part of the soundtrack of our age and explores how a broad range of musicological techniques are required in order to fully understand and appreciate this numinous music.

Andrew Shenton is Associate Professor of Music at Boston University in the US, where he teaches courses in a variety of areas including Musicology, Contemporary Music and Sacred Music. He received his B.M. degree in performance from London University, his M.M. degree in Performance from Yale University, and he holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from Harvard University. Dr. Shenton is a Visiting Professor at UvA in the fall of 2010.