At the heart of the Centre lies the composer\u2019s 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\u2019s 85th birthday in October 2020, but had to be postponed by a year because of the COVID pandemic. The conference \u201cArvo P\u00e4rt \u2013 Texts and Contexts\u201d took place on 15\u201316 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 P\u00e4rt Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a smaller scale, the Laulasmaa conference followed the direction initiated by the conference \u201cSounding the Sacred\u201d, organized by the Arvo P\u00e4rt Project at St Vladimir\u2019s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York on 1\u20134 May 2017: both events were conceived with the aim of discussing music with scholars of different disciplines for whom Arvo P\u00e4rt\u2019s work is a meeting place for ideas and perspectives. The Laulasmaa conference focused in particular on the historical and cognitive parallels in P\u00e4rt\u2019s music, on its theological foundations and on its relationship with the underlying texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lately, the interest of many musicologists has been centred around P\u00e4rt\u2019s work from the 1970s and its links with the music scene of the time. In his article, Peter J. Schmelz<\/strong> creates an intriguing picture of the borderland between the \u2018official\u2019 and the \u2018unofficial\u2019 in Soviet music, drawing on the work of like-minded contemporaries Valentyn Sylvestrov, Arvo P\u00e4rt and Alfred Schnittke. The author has studied unique sources, such as the Soviet literary and musical youth magazine Krugozor (1964\u20131992). Kevin C. Karnes<\/strong> uses archival material to trace in detail the development of P\u00e4rt\u2019s algorithmic and text-based syllabic method of composition in the period 1976\u20131977. He draws an interesting parallel with the work of the Russian Orthodox painter Eduard Steinberg (1937\u20132012). Toomas Siitan<\/strong> looks at Wenn Bach Bienen gez\u00fcchtet h\u00e4tte \u2026<\/em> (If Bach Had Been a Beekeeper \u2026<\/em>) as a bridge between P\u00e4rt\u2019s avantgarde works of the 1960s and the tintinnabuli <\/em>style, thus challenging the common narrative of P\u00e4rt\u2019s creative path. The fact that in 1976 the composer turned once more to the music of Bach is also significant in this context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four of the articles explore different ways of articulating the spiritual core of Arvo P\u00e4rt\u2019s oeuvre, exploring its religious sources and analysing its texts. Leopold Brauneiss<\/strong> \u2013 probably the most experienced analyst of P\u00e4rt\u2019s works \u2013 describes with unique insight the composer\u2019s systematic method of composition and, using the composer\u2019s sketches, reveals the musical choices made on the basis of the texts of several large-scale works (Te Deum<\/em>, Passio<\/em>). From different perspectives, two authors examine the muchdiscussed phenomenon of silence in P\u00e4rt\u2019s music. Peter C. Bouteneff<\/strong> analyses instrumental works with \u201csilent texts\u201d and relates their spirituality to Russian Orthodox contemplative practice. Andreas Waczkat<\/strong> discusses the paradox of the \u201csound of silence\u201d from the perspective of both the history of religion and perceptual analysis. Finally, Tauri T\u00f6lpt<\/strong> explores the meaning of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, a central text of Christian doctrine, in Arvo P\u00e4rt\u2019s spirituality and in four of his works. His paper is based on conversations with the composer and on the study of his musical diaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The editorial team of Res Musica <\/em>would like to express its sincere thanks to the Arvo P\u00e4rt Centre for organizing the conference and for co-publishing this yearbook. Special thanks to Kristina K\u00f5rver, editor and curator at the Centre, whose expert help and attentive eye were invaluable in editing the present collection of papers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Toomas Siitan<\/p>\n\n\n\n Translation: Marrit Andrejeva<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 14th issue of Res Musica<\/i> is dedicated to Arvo P\u00e4rt. The seven articles appearing in this volume owe their existence to the personal archive and information centre founded in 2010 by the composer\u2019s family in Laulasmaa, Estonia. The centre\u2019s true potential was revealed when the uniquely designed building opened in October 2018. The Arvo P\u00e4rt Centre was conceived as a meeting place for researchers and all music lovers interested in the composer\u2019s creative legacy and the ideas that shaped it \u2013 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[18],"class_list":["post-2165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vanemad","category-viimane"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n