In West Berlin lives a living legend. The wildest ideas about him: that he was a saint, a prophet ... because of his contemplative music that manages to touch a lot of people right in the spiritual heart. Nick Kimberley met the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt emigrated several times and the 'legend' appeared a media-shy but friendly man with a special sense of humor. Pärt's remedy for a compositional
… blockade ... peeling potatoes! Pärt made a musical development of a youthful experimentation with serialism through musical collages (which baroque-like tonal music and atonality entangled in an insoluble conflict), to the discovery of his own tintinnabuli 'style' it is sufficient if a single note beautifully played ... '. The base is the triad (third and fifth above the tonic), everything that is not essential is deleted. Melody and accompaniment are equal and even the silence gets as much weight as a musical note. Pärt 'tintinnabuli' compositions sound spiritual and static, as if the music could go on forever. (SvdP)more
