Res Musica

Res Musica 14 (2022)

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Preface

The 14th issue of Res Musica is dedicated to Arvo Pärt. The seven articles appearing in this volume owe their existence to the personal archive and information centre founded in 2010 by the composer’s family in Laulasmaa, Estonia. The centre’s true potential was revealed when the uniquely designed building opened in October 2018. The Arvo Pärt Centre was conceived as a meeting place for researchers and all music lovers interested in the composer’s creative legacy and the ideas that shaped it – a world that extends far beyond the boundaries of music. The tranquillity of the surrounding pine forest provides the ideal environment for encounters with music and offers a space for creativity, exploration and discussion.

At the heart of the Centre lies the composer’s rich personal archive, which holds research material for a range of disciplines. The Centre itself provides a space for interdisciplinary encounters between researchers. The first of these meetings was due to take place in Laulasmaa on the occasion of the composer’s 85th birthday in October 2020, but had to be postponed by a year because of the COVID pandemic. The conference “Arvo Pärt – Texts and Contexts” took place on 15–16 October 2021. Eleven presentations by scholars from the United States, Austria, Germany, Australia and Estonia were streamed to hundreds of listeners around the world. The seven articles included in this publication are revised versions of papers presented at the conference. Much of the research work would not have been possible without the archival materials of the Arvo Pärt Centre.

On a smaller scale, the Laulasmaa conference followed the direction initiated by the conference “Sounding the Sacred”, organized by the Arvo Pärt Project at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York on 1–4 May 2017: both events were conceived with the aim of discussing music with scholars of different disciplines for whom Arvo Pärt’s work is a meeting place for ideas and perspectives. The Laulasmaa conference focused in particular on the historical and cognitive parallels in Pärt’s music, on its theological foundations and on its relationship with the underlying texts.

Lately, the interest of many musicologists has been centred around Pärt’s work from the 1970s and its links with the music scene of the time. In his article, Peter J. Schmelz creates an intriguing picture of the borderland between the ‘official’ and the ‘unofficial’ in Soviet music, drawing on the work of like-minded contemporaries Valentyn Sylvestrov, Arvo Pärt and Alfred Schnittke. The author has studied unique sources, such as the Soviet literary and musical youth magazine Krugozor (1964–1992). Kevin C. Karnes uses archival material to trace in detail the development of Pärt’s algorithmic and text-based syllabic method of composition in the period 1976–1977. He draws an interesting parallel with the work of the Russian Orthodox painter Eduard Steinberg (1937–2012). Toomas Siitan looks at Wenn Bach Bienen gezüchtet hätte … (If Bach Had Been a Beekeeper …) as a bridge between Pärt’s avantgarde works of the 1960s and the tintinnabuli style, thus challenging the common narrative of Pärt’s creative path. The fact that in 1976 the composer turned once more to the music of Bach is also significant in this context.

Four of the articles explore different ways of articulating the spiritual core of Arvo Pärt’s oeuvre, exploring its religious sources and analysing its texts. Leopold Brauneiss – probably the most experienced analyst of Pärt’s works – describes with unique insight the composer’s systematic method of composition and, using the composer’s sketches, reveals the musical choices made on the basis of the texts of several large-scale works (Te Deum, Passio). From different perspectives, two authors examine the muchdiscussed phenomenon of silence in Pärt’s music. Peter C. Bouteneff analyses instrumental works with “silent texts” and relates their spirituality to Russian Orthodox contemplative practice. Andreas Waczkat discusses the paradox of the “sound of silence” from the perspective of both the history of religion and perceptual analysis. Finally, Tauri Tölpt explores the meaning of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, a central text of Christian doctrine, in Arvo Pärt’s spirituality and in four of his works. His paper is based on conversations with the composer and on the study of his musical diaries.

The editorial team of Res Musica would like to express its sincere thanks to the Arvo Pärt Centre for organizing the conference and for co-publishing this yearbook. Special thanks to Kristina Kõrver, editor and curator at the Centre, whose expert help and attentive eye were invaluable in editing the present collection of papers.

Toomas Siitan

Translation: Marrit Andrejeva

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Table of Contents:

Saateks koostajalt (doi.org/10.58162/5WD8-EN48)

(Toomas Siitan)

Editor's Preface (doi.org/10.58162/S4QJ-TN17)

(Toomas Siitan)

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ARTICLES

Peter J. Schmelz

“Comrades in Misfortune”: Arvo Pärt and Valentyn Sylvestrov, from Experimentation to Mystery, Periphery to Center

Kaaslased ebaõnnes – Arvo Pärt ja Valentõn Sõlvestrov, katsetustest müsteeriumini, ääremaalt keskusse

Kevin C. Karnes

Tintinnabuli and the Sacred: A View from the Archives, 1976–77

Tintinnabuli ja pühalikkus: vaade arhiivist, 1976–1977

Toomas Siitan

Pärt, Bach and the Bees

Pärt, Bach ja mesilased

Leopold Brauneiss

Characteristics of the Compositional Process in Arvo Pärt’s Tintinnabuli Technique

Kompositsiooniprotsessi jooni Arvo Pärdi tintinnabuli-tehnikas

Peter Bouteneff

Tacit Texts: Considerations on Pärt’s Settings of the Word

Vaikivad tekstid: tähelepanekuid Pärdi teoste sõnakäsitluse kohta

Andreas Waczkat

Sounding Silence: The Presence of the Inaudible in Arvo Pärt’s “Silentium”

Häälekas vaikus: mittekuuldava kohalolu Arvo Pärdi „Silentiumis”

Tauri Tölpt

The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in the Works and Life of Arvo Pärt

Nikaia-Konstantinoopoli usutunnistus Arvo Pärdi elus ja teostes

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REVIEWS

Andreas Waczkat

Insights From the Outside

Kevin C. Karnes. Sounds Beyond. Arvo Pärt and the 1970s Soviet Underground. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2021

Aare Tool

Heli Reimann. Tallinn ‘67 Jazz Festival. Myths and Memories.

New York: Routledge, 2022

Jaan Ross

Rikkaliku andmestikuga raamat vaskpilliõpetusest Eestis

Tõnu Soosõrv. Ja pasunad hakkasivad hüüdma ... Eesti vaskpillimängu õpetamise lugu. Tallinn: Puhkpillimuusika Koda, 2019

Äli-Ann Klooren

Kammerlauljad. Eesti Filharmoonia Kammerkoor 40.

Autorid: Allan Vurma, Kristina Kõrver, Hele-Mai Poobus, Kersti Inno; toimetaja: Tiina Õun, [Tallinn]: Eesti Filharmoonia Kammerkoor, 2022

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