Abstracts
Walter Kurt Kreysig
Among ArvoPärt’s large body of polyphony based on Latin liturgical texts, his setting of the MissaSyllabica for four voices and organ (1977, revised 1996) is accorded a special niche within the composer’s choral oeuvre. Indeed, this particular work, like many of his earlier and later choral compositions, is a clear testimony to Part’s longstanding preoccupation and experience with Gregorian chant, which provides the framework for his polyphony, specifically with the natural declamation of the Latin text suggesting the rhythmic profile and likewise with the melodic profile of the polyphony, which is inspired by the composer’s profound reflection upon the contour of the monophony with its preponderance for overall stepwise progressions as well as a few carefully controlled leaps. In the history of Western music, composers in their polyphonic settings of the ordinariummissae and later also of the propriummissae have used the rich Gregorian chant repertories as a point of departure for their individual settings, with an overall increase in contrapuntal complexity over time, which often resulted in compromising the comprehension of the sacred word, and that in the absence of the coordination of the declamation of the text in the individual voices of the polyphony. This development came to an unprecedented halt in the Council of Trent (1545-1563), and that in response to the contrapuntal complexities developed by the composers of the Burgundian Court, the Netherlands School of Composition and the Reformation. The close bonding between text and music, the principal recommendation of the Council, with its far reaching impact, was felt most profoundly in the MissaPapaeMarcelli, a work in which Palestrina embraced the Council’s recommendation pertaining to the clarity of text declamation, with the music serving “the hearts of the listeners drawn to desire of heavenly harmonies in the contemplation of the joys of the blessed” (extracted from the Council of Trent, Canon on Music to be Used in the Mass). Palestrina, in direct response to the Council’s edict on music, resorts to imitative polyphony, a hallmark of earlier contrapuntal practices, rather sparingly, and that merely in passages where the imitative writing present no hindrance to the comprehension of the text (such as in the closing Amen of the Credo), while the overriding homophony is enhanced by a number of compositional idioms, with emphasis on the fauxbourdon and falsobordone, and also in the division of the six-voice choir into smaller groups, each juxtaposed in the repetition of phrases of text.
Nearly four hundred years after the Counter Reformation, ArvoPärt, in his Missasyllabica, provides an alternative response to Palestrina’s controlled contrapuntal practices resulting from the Council of Trent, by offering an even stricter interpretation than that put forward by the members of the Council. In his polyphonic setting of the ordinariummissae with added Itemissa(which at the time of {Palestrina would have been sung in monophony), Pärt sets the Latin liturgical texts in an exclusively syllabic style, a novel characteristic which explains the title of the mass. Notwithstanding the natural declamation of the text and the overall melodic contour with an emphasis on stepwise motion, Pärt supersedes the traditional a-cappella practice with the organ, in the use of leaps imparting the bell-like sounds of the tintinnabuli style, a hallmark of Pärt’s idiosyncratic style, with the interaction between voices and organ suggesting a somewhat analogous dichotomy in Medieval polyphony, that is between the voxprincipalis with its stationary motion and the voxorganalis with its own melodic profile, and that as an animation of the voxprincipalis. There have been few but memorable performances of the Missasyllabica, by such revered groups as the Tallin Chamber Orchestra, the Hilliard Ensemble, and the Slovac Philharmonic Orchestra of Bratislava all of which attest to the profound spiritual nature of this work and ArvoPärt’s unprecedented novel approach to composition.
Anna Shvets
The creative process by ArvoPärt is based on strict mathematical regulations of the melodic-voice creation, the addition of tintinnabuli voices and foram construction. The ‘regulations’ of Pärt’s music might be revealed with the use of new methods of computational musicology and this allow us to reproduce the creative process in a form of an individual flowchart for any given composition or a generalized flowchart representing the possible steps taken by composer in order to create a piece of music. The fidelity of following the primarily set algorithm of musical development allows the discovery of editorial mistakes and eliminates accidental notes, which, being mapped as numbers shows its relationship to the chosen algorithm of development. Previous research in this domain has allowed me to elaborate a new computer-driven method of music analysis, which showed the success of its application for representation of the processes of musical development, as well as the possibility of visualization and modelling Pärt’s compositions. This paper presents a summary of the research done so far and analyses the composer’s stylistic evolution in musical development with examples drawn from six instrumental pieces.
Luisa Curinga
ArvoPärt has declared on several occasions that he aims for the ideal expressive purity represented by the human voice: «l'uomo non nasce con ilviolino in mano, né puòportarsiuno Stradivari nellatomba. Lo strumento musicale è secondario […] Il modello è ilritmo del respiro, ilbattitocardiaco, la voce naturale. In essirisiedonopiùsfumaturechenellecosemateriali» (Pärt in Espen 1998, Italian trans. in Restagno 2004, 254). This spiritual purity is, indeed, one of the major aspects of Pärt's music, and can be found both in his vocal and instrumental works.
Another distinctive aspect of his music is that it can be played by many different vocal and instrumental ensembles, not only preserving its sense and its features, but also adding new expressive possibilities (Pärt, in Elste 1988, 339). For this reason Pärt's works often exist in many different versions, both written by the composer himself, and by other musicians with his approval.
What makes Pärt's works so versatile? Is it the mathematical and speculative character of his music? The essential and clear melodic lines? The construction of polyphonic intertwining? Does this versatility also imply Pärt’s indifference to timbres or, on the contrary, does it indicate a distinctive and intelligent attention to timbral explorations?
The purpose of this paper is to lay the groundwork for some reflections on this topic – an aspect apparently only marginally mentioned by scholars until now (see Brauneiss 2004, 183-184; Engelhardt 2001, 990; Hilliard 1997, 202; McCarthy 1989, 132) – by examining Pärt's statements and interviews, as well as by analysing and comparing the different versions of Fratres (1977) and Summa (1977), two significant works by Pärt in tintinnabuli style. There are 17 versions of Fratres(10 by the author and 7 approved by him), which differ not only in their instrumentation. Summa offers further reflection upon the role of text in Pärt's works: how is it possible to maintain the whole deep meaning of a sung text in an instrumental work without denaturing it? The first version of Summa, in fact, is for mixed choir or soloists a cappella, whereas the others (7 by Pärtand 2 approved by him) are for different instrumental ensembles, without voice.
Laura Dolp
My paper explores a series of historical moments pertinent to Pärt’sMiserere – a work for soloists, chorus and instrumental ensemble that sets Psalm 50/51 and the thirteenth-century Dies Irae hymn – in order to illustrate how the phenomenon of Pärt has energized a variety of medievalisms as both a practice and an ongoing mode of perception. Like so many of his other works, Miserere has been explicitly associated with the pre-modern past since its inception. To date, Pärt’s relationship to the idea of the medieval has been studied through a variety of lenses, including the aesthetic (Sandner 1984), compositional and performative (Hillier 1997, Brauneiss 2005), ethnographic (Restagno 2004), ideological (Clarke 1993, Skipp 2009), commercial (Dolp 2012), theological (Brauneiss 2012, Bouteneff 2015), and political (Karnes 2017). My meta- analysis of Miserere resists a single approach. Rather, I utilize nine historical moments and their underlying tropes (Christianity, authority, introspection and purity) to synthesize and differentiate the ways in which Pärt’s music has been interpreted as a symbol of the medieval present. These moments include: (1976/1989) plainchant, origin stories, compositional process, (1989) the shadows of early music, Miserere premiere, early music ensembles, (1991) imprinting the medieval Pärt, (1993) ideologies of the medieval, (2005, 2012) Pärt and pre-Enlightenment theologies, (2011) Pärt’s medievalism and the moving image, (2013) virtual Miserere, (2015) models of theater. For convenience, I present the above chronologically but do not assert their causality; many of them describe dynamics of cultural reception or compositional tendencies that are ongoing. Using Miserere as a case study, I argue that cumulatively these trends demand a more complicated and nuanced theoretical model for understanding Pärt’s broader medievalism than has been employed in the past. Termed “thirdspace medievalism,” I develop the idea that in Pärt’s case, the thirdspace is characterized by markers of sacred and secular, East/West and post ideology religion, Baltic and German historiography, and narratives of exile and return.
Alexander Lingas
Notable in the music that ArvoPärt has composed since the 1980s is the increasing prominence of textual and, to a lesser degree, musical elements drawn from Orthodox Christian traditions of public worship and private devotion. Recognition of this trend has informed recent scholarship seeking to extend the pioneering efforts of Paul Hillier (1997) to discern connections between Pärt's creative work and Eastern Christianity, which ranges from the diverse perspectives offered in The Cambridge Companion to ArvoPärt (ed. Shenton, 2012) to Out of Silence (2015), a monograph by Orthodox theologian Peter Bouteneff. It is significant that the latter's quest to interpret Pärt's music from an Orthodox Christian perspective led him to broach (albeit mainly in footnotes) problems of historical change and lack of consensus in the Byzantine liturgical arts. Bouteneff's discovery of a lack of uniformity in both practice and opinion regarding relationships between text, music, and prayer not only confounds popular perceptions of an immobile Christian East, but also indicates the need to historicise examinations of links between Orthodox Christianity and Pärt's music. This paper will therefore re-examine statements by the composer and others regarding the creation, performance, and reception of his works in order to situate them within particular streams of contemporary Orthodox Christian discourse on liturgical art and its relationship to prayer. It will begin by considering how Pärt's use of sacred text to generate both texted and untexted music represents a distinctly modern response to anxieties about the musical components of Christian singing articulated by Eastern Church Fathers from Athanasius to Nikodemos the Hagiorite. In particular, it will note how logogenic composition is a logical response to historically problematic assumptions regarding the primacy of text in Orthodox church music fostered by authors of the Russian emigration including the musicologist Johann von Gardner (1898–1984) and the theologian Nicolas Lossky. The paper will conclude by considering how Pärt and his music embody notions of self-effacing Christian authorship that are modern variations on ancient themes enumerated by Derek Krueger in Writing and Holiness (2004).
Nicholas Darbon
ArvoPärt quotes this Russian proverb in an interview with Jordi Savall: “Where simplicity reigns, there are hundreds of angels. / Where there is complexity, there is none”. What meaning is given to this simplicity? Is it claimed by the composer or is it a label attached by the media? The word ‘simplicity’ comes from the late middle english, from old french ‘simplicité’. It meant: “Naiveteof the one who has the Faith" (Psalter of Cambridge, 1160); ‘humility’ for St. Francis; ‘Ignorance’ in 1510 and ‘Plainness’ in 1520. And today: "a thing that is plain or uncomplicated", or "a condition of being easy to understand or do" (Oxford Dictionnaries, 2017). In the religious and moral sense, the simple is naive, natural, wise, humble, modest, and foolish, stupid, credulous, rudimentary; in the medical sense, it is natural, original, easy; in the mathematical sense, it is the indivisible, the unity (from Latin ‘simplex’: "composed of a single element"). Thus according to Olivier Messiaen: "God is simple". Where will the music of Pärt be located? At the time of De profundisof Pärt, the composer and musicologist François Nicolas wrote an Eloge de la Complexité: "complexity is the guarantee of a contemporary musical form" ; similarly, for the mystic KarlheinzSockhausen, "complexity is a value in itself". The journalist Harry Halbreich considers that Pärt is not "simply naive" (in french: ‘naïf’): he is to be classified among the silliness, the stupidity (in french: ‘niais’). His music "is poor and intellectually primitive. Non-complex is the music of what I call The New Simpleton whose supporters are the media and publishers.” ArvoPärt's music takes place at a time when the concepts of simplicity and complexity have become aesthetic banners: New Simplicity, Minimalism, NeueEinfachheit vs. New Complexity, Komplexismus, etc. What does the white pocket of the ArvoPärtKanonPokajanen record, of an immaculate whiteness, indicate? Does it belong to Modest art, Arte povera, Naive art, Minimal art? Pärt is not the only composer touched by this wind of simplicity. What is ‘naïve’ and ‘religious’ in music from Songs from Childhood (1956) to KleineLitanei (2015)? At the same time as the New Age and the emergence of pseudo-sciences, the Art-Science and the scientific Theories of Complexity are developed. How is Pärt's music simple intrinsically? Do Theories of Complexity provide tools for measuring it? Is counting a primary intention of the composer? How was this simplicity received, perceived, used by the press, artists, musicologists? Paradoxes nest behind the evidence. There is a complexity in simplicity. The multiplicity is contained in unity.
This communication is based on twenty years of work: I began my thesis in 1997 on the stakes of the concepts of simplicity and complexity in contemporary music. This approach to simplicity in Pärt is criticism of criticism.
Andrew Shenton
Although he has not written an opera, Pärt has written several large scale dramatic works including Passio (1982), and Miserere (1989/92). His most interesting dramatic works, however, are six short and largely unrelated pieces that are essentially scena – complete scenes lasting no more than fifteen minutes that represent a unique contribution to the genre of liturgical drama. All six works are discussed since they all present interesting solutions to the opportunities and problems of composing concise narrative works. The first five are: And one of the Pharisees (1992), Dopo la vittoria (1996/98), Tribute to Caesar (1997), Woman with alabaster box (1997), Cecilia vergineromana (2002/02). I concentrate, however, on L’abbéAgathon (2004/5), a fifteen-minute monodrama that encapsulates a fully developed tintinnabuli style that incorporates leitmotifs, symbolism, and a reworking of concepts of common practice harmony. I situate these works in the context of Pärt’s complete oeuvre, and I analyze their theological content by relating what Pärt does to homiletic techniques. All six works exhibit procedures used by sermon writers in the presentation of what amounts to parabolic teaching through music. I conclude that these are the works of Pärt the evangelist, and that although taken individually they seem random and incongruous, they do I fact fit comfortably in an overall theological viewpoint demonstrated through Pärt’s careful choice of religious texts.
Biographies
Abby Anderton is an Assistant Professor of Music at Baruch College, City University of New York. She is currently writing a book concerning Berlin’s musical culture after 1945 entitled Rubble Music: Occupying the Ruins of Postwar Berlin. Her workhas appeared in The Journal of Musicological Research and Music and Politics, and she has received fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, the Holocaust Educational Foundation, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Walter Kreyszig is Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the University of Saskatchewan, a Fellow of the American Biographical Center (Raleigh, North Carolina) a Deputy Director of the International Biographical Centre (Cambridge, United Kingdom), and a member of the Center for Canadian Studies at the University of Vienna. He has published widely on twentieth-century music in journals (including Musiktheorie; StudienzurMusikwissenschaft: Beihefte der Denkmälern der Tonkunst in Österreich; MusicologicaAustriaca), conference proceedings (including Schriften der OthmarSchoeckGesellschaft; Musicology and Globalization, Kanada-Studien), and reference works (including Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart).
Luisa Curinga, flautist and musicologist, obtained her degree in flute playing at the Conservatorio of Firenze and her university degree in Modern Literature at the University of Macerata, with a thesis in Music History. She also obtained a PhD in Storia, Scienze e TecnichedellaMusica at the University of Roma “Tor Vergata”. As a musicologist, she has published in Italy and abroad, and participates regularly in national and international congresses. She has been a member of the scientific committee of the GruppoTeoria e Analisi Musicale (GATM), from 2002 to 2012, and a member of the board of directors of the SocietàItaliana di Musicologia (SIdM - from 2009 to 2015. Luisa Curinga is full Professor of Flute at the Conservatorio di Musica “G.B. Pergolesi” of Fermo and, from 2010, adjunct professor of Music Education at the UniversitàdegliStudi di Macerata.Both as flautist and researcher her interest is mainly focused on XXth century music as well as on contemporary music. She is the author of a monograph on André Jolivet. She has recently also researched into the flute repertoire of the XVIIIth century.
Anna Shvets has recently defended herPhDthesis in cultural studies and musicology entitled Methodological bases of postmodern music culture phenomena research in conditions of information societyat Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin (Poland).mDuring her PhD research, she collaborated with leading research and higher education institutions in France such as IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, Paris), SCRIME(Studios de Création et de RechercheenInformatique et MusiqueElectroacoustique,Bordeaux) and Bordeaux Montaigne University.
Starting from 2013 Anna was regularly receiving the grants for young researchers and PhD candidates from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education for her scientific achievementswhich include 19 publications in scientific peer-reviewed journals and books (included to the Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar and other systems of indexing) and active participation in 19 international conferences and workshops in London, Paris, Copenhagen, Salzburg, Florence, Bordeaux, Vilnius, Krakow and other European cities. The h-index, according to ResearchGate, is equal to 3 and the Impact Factor – to 0.51.The full list of publications is available on researchgate.net and academia.edu: