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Interview [published June 2000]
Arvo Pärt: Miserere And Minimalism
Lewis Owens meets composer Arvo Pärt
A few months ago, I contacted the composer Arvo Pärt
through his publisher in Vienna. I informed Mr Pärt
that I was interested in writing a book on his life and
music. After reading my proposal, Mr Pärt suggested
that we met to discuss things further. The first meeting
took place on Wednesday March 29 at the Royal Academy
of Music, where there was a three day festival in
honour of his music. The second meeting was at his
house in Essex, which was followed by a visit to the
nearby Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist.
Arvo Pärt was born in Paide, south-east of Tallinn,
Estonia, on 11 September 1935. He entered the Tallinn
Conservatory in the autumn of 1957 and was later a
winner of the All-Union Survey of the Creative Work
of Young Composers held in Moscow for composers
throughout the USSR under the age of 35. Although his
musical ability was clearly evident, its religious content
led to various confrontations with the Soviet authorities
(his work Credo was banned for over decade) and he
applied to leave the Soviet Union (and hence relinquish
Soviet citizenship) in 1979 with his Jewish wife, Nora.
On January 18, 1980 they left Tallinn for Vienna where
BUY Arvo Pärt music online from and
they acquired Austrian citizenship. They now live primarily
in Berlin.
Pärt’s minimalist music is rapidly increasing in popularity,
and his attempt to re-establish the sacred roots of
music has a growing appeal. Yet it seems to me that
without understanding or appreciating the reasons or
‘philosophy’ (in a nonacademic sense) behind his often
repetitive tonal compositions, Pärt’s music may seem
rather banal and somewhat unimaginative. Therefore,
my interest was primarily to understand in greater
depth the ‘philosophy’ that drives his music.
Eschewing in large part the conflicting tension
of opposing forces that constitutes the dynamics of
change found in, for example, the later symphonies of
Tchaikovsky, Pärt’s harmonies suggest an understanding
and experience of ‘time’ that is nonlinear and nonteleological
(that is, it appears to reach no climax or
‘goal’); moreover, as it lies outside a linear, teleological
paradigm, it is immune from accusations of stasis.
Indeed, Pärt’s work has an underlying dynamic and
organic unity, which seems to require an intuitive mode
of perception to be experienced fully. This includes an
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