Arvo Pärt
A Lone Exception or the Future of Classical Music?
Arvo Part is, without a doubt, one of the greatest composers of our time. In my opinion, he is the greatest. If you’ve only heard Part’s famous Spiegel im spiegel, used in a plethora of soundtracks and popular settings, you may not be aware of the genius behind such a simple yet penetrating piece. Perhaps, after a flippant first exposure to the music, it may have even struck you as elementary.
But few, if any, composers are able to effectively produce the style which Part is known for. It developed out of the minimalists, but ascended beyond that of his minimalist contemporaries. No, when I listen to Part I don’t think at all about Philip Glass or John Cage. He leaves behind the method and reaches towards the sublime in a way few others ever have.
Which is why I put Part’s work into a category of its own: Essentialism. Part distills his work in a way, capturing its pure essence. Nothing is overstated, yet nothing is understated. Every phrase, every turn, every silence, exists purposely. As Part once said about his piece Te Deum, “I had to draw this music gently out of silence.” One gets the sense that silence is a familiar state and a fertile starting ground for the composer in many of his works.
He does not embark on his creative journey glued to a methodology, falsely idolizing the means over the ends. He embarks in search of beauty itself, attempting to capture some and offer it to his audience. And he succeeds.
Take Part’s piece for organ and soprano, My Heart’s in the Highlands. If you’ve never heard it, stop reading and pull it up on Spotify. Put your headphones on noise canceling mode if you can; at the very least, go to a quiet room. Close your eyes. And hit play.
My Heart’s in the Highlands is a perfect example of a piece of music that, on paper, appears simple. From a point of harmonic and structural analysis, it is technically simple. But the simplicity is not the secret, the sublimity is. Part’s ability to both distill down and build up his work into its truest essence is what makes him a master who stands apart from our musically impoverished age.
My opinion of Part is largely rejected by the musical institutions of the West today. Of course, he is greatly loved by the people, so far as his more popular music goes, and by much of the musical world as a whole. But in the high class of academia, he’s seen as just that: popular. Which means, of course, not sufficiently sophisticated! Heaven forbid a contemporary composer create music that actually resonates with listeners rather than alienating them.
During my undergraduate, I took a semester abroad and studied at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. One day I brought a tonal piece to my composition lesson. It was a string duet for violin and cello, based on a Benedictine chant I heard and recorded at a Trapist monastery in the South of Belgium. Undoubtedly, I had been somewhat inspired by Part after writing an in-depth analysis of his Trisagion for strings the semester prior (a piece worth viewing).
My professor, after reviewing the piece and plucking out some lines on the baby grand piano, said to me, “It sounds like Arvo Part.” I beamed. This was one of the greatest compliments I’d ever been given; especially coming from my wry, Belgian professor who rarely cracked a smile. Not a moment later, he finished his thought, “which, to me, is rather boring.” He went on to say how he much preferred the other piece I was working on: a sonic nightmare based on Schoenberg’s 12-tone method.
My Belgian composition professor is not alone in his dismissal of Part’s superiority and relevance in the contemporary music scene. In fact, the preference towards ugly music remains the trend du jour in conservatories and top musical institutions across Western Europe and the United States.
This puzzles me, as it seems obvious that atonal music is the past. It made its mark in music history, but that history is over. It was a time of postmodernism and relativism that served nobody but the academics who perpetuated it. It certainly helped put public interest in classical music on life support. They said, you’ll listen and you’ll like it, and if you don’t, you’re a pleb. The people, the vast majority of people, did not like it and stopped listening. And yet they continue beating the dead horse. Listen to a piece at random from any top composer occupied with art music today– no, not Hanz Zimmer or John Williams– and you’ll see what I mean. Listen too long and your ears will bleed out.
What is the future of classical music, if not ugliness? Currently, I find little evidence that there is any future. Sure, there are a handful of tonal composers today whom the musical establishment has accepted. But none who have me convinced we’re moving forward. I’m not interested in musical regurgitations of past glory, as brilliantly exemplified in the work of prodigy Alma Deutscher. Nor am I impressed or even very entertained by the somewhat dull inventions of largely tonal composers such as Jennifer Higdon.
I return to Part. In regards to instrumental work, leaving the choral world to another discussion, I find few other sources of beauty and inspiration in the contemporary wasteland of classical music.
Classical music is largely left out of the political-cultural conversation today, as opposed to other fields in the arts which seem to be teaming with fresh possibility and attention. Perhaps that’s because others, like myself, struggle to see its future. After he’s gone, will Arvo Part have been a mere reprieve from the chaos, a warm light on the dark path ahead? Or perhaps, will a new generation of composers follow in his footsteps, not by stylistic imitation, but by striving towards beauty and the sublime?
Time will tell. Certainly, if we hope for the latter we must begin by publicly acknowledging, then challenging, the grim status quo.
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