Arvo Pärt

Celebrated as one of the greatest contemporary composers, Arvo Pärt (b. 1935, Estonia) had a difficult start to his career under Communist rule. Winner of the USSR Young Composers' Competition in 1963, the neoclassically-influenced musician went through various phases (dodecaphony, serialism, collages), creating controversy with his religiously-inspired Credo and Symphony No. 3. Despite censorship, he continued his research and developed a style he called "tintinnabuli". This aesthetic, inspired by the sound of bells, is based on a simple, slow melody with notes in perfect chords, creating a resonant effect. The medieval-inspired Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, Fratres, Tabula Rasa and Spiegel im Spiegel were written between 1977 and 1978. Exiled to Vienna and then Berlin, Arvo Pärt is published by ECM, which releases his works such as Passio and Te Deum. Arvo Pärt's growing reputation reached out to fans of new age and minimalist music. In the 2000s, the composer returned to Estonia and continued to enrich a body of work played around the world with The Deers Cry and Symphony No. 4 (2008), followed by Adam's Lament (2012).