Parting Glances: David Clarke Reappraises the Music and the Aesthetics of Arvo Pärt

Author(s): David Clarke and Arvo Pärt

Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 134, No. 1810 (Dec., 1993), pp. 680-684
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1002929 .
Accessed: 09/04/2011 21:40

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mtpl. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Musical Times Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
Musical Times.

http://www.jstor.org
,_ ?Reputations

PARTING
GLANCES
Aesthetic solace or act of complicity? David Clarke

reassesses the music of Arvo Part

rvo Part,its seems, is a composerwhose momenthas come.
Since approximately the time of his departure from the
former USSR in 1980 he has enjoyed an unfalteringrise to promi-
nence, marked by the release of numerous CDs, the Hilliard
Ensemble's international tours of his music, and the inevitable
Channel4 documentary. The wave of enthusiasmfor Part's music
- or at least for those works writtensince the late 70s - belongs to
the same syndromethat has driven G6recki's ThirdSymphonyand
Tavener's The protecting veil to the top of the CD charts. And
maybe the attractionis not difficult to understand. After several
decades in which Modern Music meant for many an alienating
atonalityand complex structuralabstraction,here at last is a music
that re-opens the communication channels, offering tonal purity
and simplicity of design. What's more, its religious aura clearly
has a strong allure for a secularisedculturethat no longer has any
collective way of articulatingthe spiritual.
While all this might be greetedas a positive development,I want
to argue here that a more appropriateresponse is to sound the
alarmbells. For far from signifying the resolution of the conflicts
of modernity, this music is in fact symptomatic of a deepening
crisis. The case of Part is particularly apposite, but the issues
which his music throwsup also apply to otherbrandsof 'holy min-
imalism' and for certainwider musical trends. I also want to stress
that I'm not arguing for outright acceptance or dismissal of this
music; to go down either road levels the critiquesolely at the com-
poser, ignoringwider culturalquestionsthat involve us all. Instead
I want to explore some of the contradictionsof Part's music, and
force a confrontationwith some its uncomfortableimplications.
First, though, it will be helpful briefly to rehearse some of the
features characteristicof Part's music since 1976 - what he terms
his 'tintinnabuli'style.1 This word refers to the ubiquitousunfold-
ing of note patternsdrawnfrom the prevailingtonic triad. In verse
XIII of his Miserere, for instance, tintinnabuliparts taken by the
soprano and first tenor (see ex.1) are counterpointedby conjunct
lines, equally essential to the style, in the alto and second tenor.
Their basis is the diatonic scale, which Part typically treats as a
source-set from which increasingly more elements are admittedas
the piece proceeds. But over and above these specific details,
'tintinnabuli' connotes strict, self-imposed compositional con-
straint. The quoted passage is absolutely typical in its limited
rhythmic vocabulary, homophonic texture, confined compass,
highly regulated selection from the total vocal and instrumental
forces available, and undeviatingtonal centre (F minorprevails for
most of Miserere's 35-minute span; in many other works adher-
ence to a single tonality is absolute). The backgroundof silence
indicatedby the rests is also fundamental.
When Part wants to create a more expanded, continuous utter-
ance he typically exploits the device of mensuration canon - a
technique learnt from his studies of medieval and early renais-
sance music, undertakenduring the gestation of the tintinnabuli
style. Throughwhat is essentially an extremely simple principle,
involving the replicationof lines in faster or slower durations,Part

XIII
2 6 4 2 4 3
s
J JJ iJ j
- j r - -

A
W7wJ_J - J,,J Jj J J - ^J J J r' J
Ne piu i i - ci- as me a __fa - cie tu -a,

T
i r jrJ
Jrr J J - J
T
IJ 2J J r JJ J - J_J - JJ
JJ J -J -J -

680 The Muasical Times December 1993

 D G4x

A -?
Ob.

Cl.
4"rF" F" r F F " F"

Fg.
,: F FF F F F F F r r F r? r
Cl. basso

Tr. 4r( -* F -

Trbn.

Camp.

Tam-Tam( - o0
o
f
Timp.

el. Q JJ- jf- r f r tf t

e:::n o II - r'
el. Q |

F
r rF F r r o r

Q
T rr r. r r r r rrf r r r rJ r r rr r r J J~-
Di - es ir ae, di es i la sol-vet sa-clum i fa - vil-la: te - ste Da - vid cum Sy bil - la

.Bv tt f r rf rr rf r f r r r r r r -r
f r r r r,r r
,
. fF F fr rr r FF F 1 Fr r- Ff F r r r. r

& , ff f
':

P 1', 16' vJf - 'rr:r--fr

-- :'r + r- -- 'rr r- -
tr-: r--r r

is able to generate textures of some complexity. In the Dies Irae
setting which he interposes (along with its A minor tonality) into
the psalm text of Miserere, the tenor and bass parts are duplicated
in augmentation in many of the other lines, by factors ranging
from twice to 16 times as slowly (see ex.2). Similar techniques
can also be found in works such as Arbos, Cantus in memory of
Benjamin Britten, Festina lente and Stabat Mater - interestingly,
all in A minor.
The simplicity of materials and procedure demonstrated in
these examples is the hard-won gain of a long stylistic struggle.
The rejected 12-tone language of Part's earlier works is now
anathema to him, despite the fact that he put himself on the line
for composing that way when his native Estonia belonged to the
former Soviet empire. Initial attempts,which we now see as tran-
sitional, to restore tonality to his music resulted in an
unintegratedand at times frankly crudejuxtaposition of tonal and
atonal soundworlds in which the former is ironised (as in Pro et
contra, or the Second Symphony), or parodied (as in the neo-
medieval stylisation of the Third Symphony), or naively
presented as the eventually triumphantadversaryof 'bad' atonali-
ty (as in Credo). Compared with such ventures, Part's
tintinnabuli style, which emerged after a subsequent period of
intense reflection, appears as a far more synthetic, integrated and
authenticcompositional voice.
Yet one man's solution to a creative impasse does not mean
automatic endorsement from culture at large. Part's passage to

December 1993 The Musical Times 681

tonality, simplicity and homogeneity moves in the opposite direc- of developmentor musical argument. This is manifestedin both a
tion from the historical progression of musical materials that resistance to modulation, and a renunciation(on all but the most
underpinsmoderism, the dominant aesthetic of the 20th century local level) of material thematic processes (e.g. statement,modi-
(here I draw on concepts from TW Adorno, whose large body of fied repetition,re-statement)that would enable a piece to become
philosophical writings represents the most far-reaching analysis equated with the evolution of a musical idea. Sometimes these
available of the complex and contradictoryaesthetics of the mod- principles of negation are applied with absolute rigour;sometimes
ernist movement2). In order to circumvent modernism's critical Part explores what possibilities there are for a little relaxation of
agenda Part has to convince us of the validity - the contemporary the rules - as in Miserere, which does shift key centre from time to
meaningfulnessand truthfulness- of the musical materialshe has time and has moments of drama and forward momentum. The
re-mortgagedfrom the past. Accordingly, the tintinnabulistyle is overall tendency, however, is towards temporal stasis: where each
more thanjust a set of musical features:it amountsto a rhetoric, a moment in the piece exists only for itself ratherthan as part of a
contradictorystrategy which seeks on the one hand to meet mod- kinetic progressiontowards the next; where the whole is a harmo-
ernism on its own terms, and on the other to deny modernism's nious juxtaposition of such moments and is equally reflected in
own denial of certainaesthetic possibilities. This strategyemploys them at every stage.
two main tactics: the first implements critical processes from
within the music itself; the second invokes a significant extra- he constraintsdescribed above are essential to the rhetoric
musical discourse which urges the primacy of the music's of the tintinnabuli style: the outward badge of a self-
spiritualityover and above the concerns of modernity. imposed critique that is a necessary condition for the
reinstatement of tonality. It remains a moot point, however,
O n the first front, then, Part attemptsto legitimise his use of whether Part has not painted himself into an aesthetic corner.
pure diatonic tonality in a period of our culture which has Without such constraints he would court either redundancy,
seen the breakdownnot only of the diatonic system but also of its lapsing back into an expressive language for which we are already
associated syntax of rhythm, phrase structureand developmental well served by music of previous eras; or nostalgia, the very
processes - a consequence of modernism's restless critique of expression of which is an unacceptable admission that the object
established modes of meaning. He strives to inoculate the
tintinnabulistyle against such a critiqueby paradoxicallyintroduc- YEHUDIMENUHIN& ARVO PART, PARIS, 1993 Photo: Malcolm Crowthers
ing an analogous critical stance into the treatment of its own
historically retrievedmaterials. Classical tonal elements are made
to resist participationin their associated systems of meaning- such
as functional harmonyor unfolding musical argument- througha
number of devices, among them mensuration canon, isorhythm,
quasi-serial manipulation or permutationof note sequences, and
principles of strict symmetry. What these techniques have in
common is a high level of pre-compositional decision-making
typical of the rationalisingimpetusbehind much 20th-century'pro-
gressive' music; they all serve to defamiliarise the well known
domain of the diatonic.
So, for instance, in the Dies Irae quoted in ex.2, the superim-
posed tempos of the various mensural layers create a complex
fabric in which the all-too familiar descending naturalminor scale
is re-contextualised. The emergent texture is a web of numerous
cross-connections that throws up many unpredictable harmonic
configurations. A homophonicpassage like that alreadyexamined
in ex.1 demonstratesstill more clearly the way Part wrests tonal
harmonyfrom its traditionalfunctionalbasis. The alto and second
tenor move in contrary motion around the melodic centre G,
which contends against the F minor tintinnabuli lines of the
sopranoand first tenor. These independentlinear elements gener-
ate quite striking sonorities which have nothing to do with
functional triadic harmony,demonstratinginstead a state of eman-
cipated diatonic dissonance. Freed from triadic confinement, the
vertical dimension aspires to the wider-rangingintervallic possi-
bilities of free atonal music (though it should be added that the
level of dissonance found here is a more extreme example of a
general tendency.)
A further crucial aspect of the immanent critique of tonality
embedded in Part's tintinnabulistyle is its opposition to principles

682 The 8Musical Times December 1993

of one's longing is no longer available. Yet under such con- tintinnabulistyle, and which demonstrablyinhere in the music. Its
straintsjust how far is it possible to make musical statements of call to 'an inner quietness' could be seen as a corollaryof its denial
real significance? Without doubt Part has perfected a highly per- of the dynamics of musical developmentand its associateddissolu-
sonal style, and at his best communicates with an eloquent and tion of linear temporality. The fact that nothing much happens in
moving simplicity - I think here of works such as this music directs our attention (or maybe intention)
Fratres, especially in its version for multiple elsewhere: towards the conditions of our very
cellos. At times, however, the rhetoric fails, being. It affords us the opportunityto cease
or falters, exposing a music that is at best '... a morc e al ppropriate crunchingthe unremittinginflux of signs to
without meaningful content, or at worst which we as creatures of the late 20th
bordering on banality. For whole response i s tc ) sound the century have become accustomed, and
stretches of Tabula rasa, for to attendinsteadto the passing of time
example, unadorned scalic and alarm bells ;. F for far from itself. In the silences of the passage
triadic figuration, devoid of any from Miserere quoted in ex.1 we
ambiguity and largely predictable signifying tl he lresolution of sense time receding. We don't actu-
in its trajectory, does little more ally hear time ebbing away, but
than fill out time. And in the fast the conflict s ol f modernity, rather through our focus on the
string interludes in Stabat Mater changingphases of a decaying sound
similar elements, combined with an this mu, sic is in fact perhapsintuit what is essential about
undeviating and unambiguous rhyth- time. This meditative sensibility
mic profile, create what sounds like a symptc am. atic of a equally heightens our awareness of the
travesty of 18th- or 19th-century accom- sensuous propertiesof sound itself, of the
paniment figuration - a case of the deepen ling ; crisis.' space that it inhabits,of our own bodies, and
tintinnabuli material being unable to dislodge of the relationshipbetween all three. All of this
its accrued historical meanings. These examples suggests a music that inclines towards the phenome-
demonstratethe perilously fine line Parttreadsbetween sim- nological rather than the semiotic, and it is perhaps little
plicity and vacuity, and feed the gnawing suspicion that in his wonder that its promotional texts repeatedly stress the ideas of
attempt to circumvent a modernist critique he has retracted into silence, breathing,and beauty.
an aesthetic world that has little room for manoeuvre. These qualitiesarguablyconstitutethe music's strongestclaim to
aestheticvalidity. Yet whatevertranscendentpropertiesit might be
ut this is where the second rhetorical strategy of the felt to possess, whatever its claims to 'knowledge of a timeless
tintinnabulistyle comes into play. For such apparentfail- truth',the argumentremainsthat it cannotbe judged apartfrom the
ings, so the argumentmight run, are the result of misreading the social context of its productionand reception. Even if the music's
music purely in modernistterms; after all, this music is primarily value lies in the fact that it 'stands apartfrom the world', that pre-
spiritual, and thus must be judged by criteriathat transcendsuch supposes a particularset of social conditions from which it wants
historically rooted contingencies as the progression of musical to disengage. Of course, the society under which Part's formative
materials. As one Germancommentatorputs it: 'whoever, along attitudeswould have developed (and tintinnabulistyle would have
with TheodorW. Adorno, counts only the advancementof musical gestated)was the totalisingregime of Soviet communism;nonethe-
material as a sign of worth will most likely dismiss Arvo Part's less, Western late capitalist culture, in which his music has found
music as retrogressive. But what makes this music appearunited such an empathicreception, itself offers no shortageof oppressive
with things past, what gives it an archaiceffect, is nothing but its machinery (even if it is more covert in its operation)from which
knowledge of a timeless truth'.3 It is quite typical that this other we might wish to flee into the solace of the aesthetic.
aspect of the rhetoric of the tintinnabuli style is conducted more as
a textual than a musical discourse, often using poetic or pious lan- A modernist line would ask, however, whether it is not an
guage. Paul Hillier, for example, writes: 'Arvo Part's music act of complicity for art to act as society's sanctuaryfrom
accepts silence and death, and thus reaffirms the basic truth of life, its own conditions of alienation, and to offer succour to a culture
its frailty compassionatelyrealised, its sacredbeauty observed and that has lost the basis for its belief- and value-systems.
celebrated. He uses the simplest of means ... and with them Modernist art, while not necessarily explicitly politically
creates an intense, vibrantmusic that stands apartfrom the world engaged, has nevertheless been marked by a refusal to provide
and beckons us to an inner quietness and an inner exaltation'.4 Or the comfort of a closed and harmoniousother world. By absorb-
consider Wilfrid Mellers' comment that 'for Part's music to work ing within its own structuresthe fragmentationand contradictions
its magic one needs only to be, as the Prayer Book puts it, "of of our existing culture it has sought to protect itself from appro-
good will" .'5 priation by capitalism's mechanisms for self-perpetuation, and
This kind of rhetoricis the stuff of most sleeve- or programme thus identified the future as the moment, if any, when a more
notes accompanying works by Part, and one could regard it by authenticreconciliation might be possible.
turnsas either illuminatingor fanciful. In reality, however, a more Ultimately, what we make of Part's music cannot be detached
nuanced critique is called for. Hillier does put his finger on from what we make of the aesthetic claims of modernism;yet that
certain of the qualities responsible for the appeal of Part's itself is not so simple. Under a hard-line modernist stance his

December 1993 The Musical Times 683

music is unlikely to receive legitimation, for the reasons outlined
above. However, Part's very rise to prominenceis symptomaticof
the post-modern era we have now entered, under which mod-
ernism's one-time central position in 20th century art has itself
been dislodged. Under postmodernism's decentring, relativising
movement, previous modernist viewpoints become just another
option - a mere style, some might say. These are the conditions
thathave made Part's music apparentlyendorsable.
If, then, modernismis denied any privilegedclaim, one can envis-
age two ways of acquiescing to the rhetoric of Part's tintinnabuli
style. Both have disturbingcorollaries. One view, the thank-god-
moderism's-over syndrome,breathesa heartysigh of relief thatit's
possible to have back the things thatmodernismoutlawed:pure dia-
tonic tonality, melody, emotional content without accompanying
neurosis,transparentintelligibility. This view is disturbingbecause
it begs the questionof what modernismwas aboutin the firstplace -
denying that it ever had a case, or declaringthat case now closed.
Which is to deny in turn either that there is anythingreally wrong
with our culture,or that arthas any mediatingrole in the wider dis-
course of society and history. Another, more considered and
qualified acceptance of Part recognises the continuing need for a
RECENTLY PUBLISHED WORKS OF
ARVO PART FROM UNIVERSAL EDITION
Fratresfor cello and piano
The Beatitudesfor choir and SATB soloist and organ
(1990, Revised 1991)
Full Score
Choral Score
7 Magnificat Antiphonenfor a cappella choir, 1988
(Revised 1991)
Silouans Song ("My Soul Yearns After the Lord...")
for string orchestral) (Revised 1992)
Full Score
Choral Score
Fratresfor wind octet and percussion (1977)
Arranged by Beat Brinner
Score
Set of Parts
For complete details of Arvo Part's works, please contact the
Sales Department for a comprehensive brochure.
SHOWROOM
48 Great Marlborough Street Uniersl
London W1V 2BN Universal
Telephone: 071-437 5203 Edition
684 The Musical
radicalmodem art, yet still mournsthe aestheticvacuumit has left.
Part'smusic is thus heardas giving voice on moderism's behalfto a
song that it itself may not sing. This view is also uncomfortable,
because it highlightsthe irreconcilabilityof the two poles; and while
this discomfortis at least authenticto our times we shouldbewarethe
dangersof aestheticisingit. It might be conceivable,then, to regard
Part's music as the fragile growthof a few small flowers on a waste
landthatmoder arthas refusedto re-seed. We shouldnot be fooled,
however,into believing thatspringis on the way.
see PaulHillier:'ArvoPart- MagisterLudi'in
1. Fora fullerintroduction
TheMusicalTimes,vol. 130 (March1989),pp. 134 -37. 2. I mustalso
record here my debt to Max Paddison's lucid study, Adorno's aesthetics of
music (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1993). Any errorsof interpretationare
of course my own. 3. Peter Hamm: CD notes to Arbos (ECM 1325 831
959-2, 1987 [my translation]). 4. Hillier: op. cit., p.134. 5. Wilfrid
Mellers:CD notes to Arbos (ECM 1325 831 959-2, 1987).
Music examples are ? Universal Edition, Vienna and reproducedby kind
permission of UniversalEdition,London
?8.55
?5.25
?2.85
?7.60
?32.50
?7.60
?14.00
?16.00
SALESDEPT
38 Eldon Way, Paddock Wood
Kent,TN126BE
Telephone: 0892 833422
Times December 1993