Method and Meaning in Arvo Pärt’s Annum per

Annum

Andrew Shenton

In 1993 critic David Clarke reappraised the music and aesthetic of Arvo Pärt, an
Estonian composer who had steadily been growing in prominence and popularity for
more than a decade. Clarke was appreciative of Pärt’s work but warned that ‘In order
to circumvent modernism’s critical agenda Pärt has to convince us of the validity – the
contemporary meaningfulness and truthfulness – of the musical materials he has
remortgaged from the past.’1 Clarke was referring to a new compositional technique
Pärt had devised around 1976, called tintinnabulation. Pärt described the inspiration
for his new technique by declaring: ‘I work with very few elements –with one voice,
with two voices. I build with the most primitive materials – with the triad, with one
specific tonality. The three notes of a triad are like bells. And that is why I call it
tintinnabulation.’2 In this essay I will demonstrate that Pärt has successfully
remortgaged materials from the past in his organ work Annum per Annum (Year by
Year, 1980), creating a work that doesn’t use tintinnabulation, but instead looks to
organum, a technique from the Middle Ages. I will also demonstrate the historical
significance of this piece as a significant step in the development of Pärt’s mature style.
Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) studied composition at the Tallinn Conservatory in Estonia
with Heino Eller. During his early career he was a recording engineer with Estonian
Radio and composed music for the stage and for film. Although he had little access to
contemporary trends in Western music, he was often at the forefront of the use of new
techniques in works such as Nekrolog of 1960, which was the first composition by an
Estonian composer to employ serial technique. He continued with serialism through
the mid–1960s after which he began to make use of collage technique in works such as
Collage on B–A–C–H (1960). This technique is part of the compositional design of his
Credo of 1968, which uses Bach’s famous Prelude in C from the Well–Tempered Clavier
alongside newly composed material. The piece caused a controversy and was banned in
the USSR because its affirmation of the Christian faith was viewed as an attack on the
Soviet regime. Along with the political crisis the piece marked a personal crisis after
which Pärt entered a period of contemplative silence.
During the period 1968–1976 Pärt spent time studying early music including the
Notre Dame School, Machaut, Josquin and Victoria. He also spent time reading Dante
and other writers such as the medieval poet Shota Rustaveli.3 Pärt studied Gregorian
chant and explained that this music ‘has taught me what a cosmic secret is hidden in
the art of combining two, three notes’, adding ‘That’s something twelve–tone

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composers have not known at all. The sterile democracy between the notes has killed
in us every living feeling.’4 Pärt came to a fundamental realization during this time that
would radically alter his sound world and his approach to composition. He noted: ‘I
have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one
note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me.’5 The first composition
that embodies the principles of the new tintinnabuli technique is a short piano piece
called Für Alina. First performed in a concert in 1976, along with six other works that
introduced the new style, the piece remains one of his most popular works. In 1977 he
composed three works using this new technique that are also among his most well
loved: Fratres, Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten and Tabula Rasa. Since then he has
utilized his new technique in an astonishing range of pieces both on a large scale (for
example, Te Deum [1984–1986, rev. 1993]) and on a smaller scale (The Beatitudes [1990]).
Although the tintinnabuli works are now enormously popular, at the time of the
commission for Annum Pärt was not sure of the validity of his new means of
expression and was still willing to experiment. So, for Annum he reused and updated
organum, a technique known to us now largely through a manuscript called the Magnus
Liber Organi, which was compiled in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Magnus
Liber contains works by composers such as Léonin and Pérotin who worked at Notre
Dame Cathedral in Paris. It catalogs an important stage in the evolution of music:
polyphony developed from chant first with parallel organum, and then free organum
and finally florid (or melismatic) organum, which sets several pitches in the duplum
(top) voice over a single sustained pitch in the tenor voice. Annum is clearly based on
this principle, though Pärt has not used traditional chant melodies but developed
entirely new musical material.

Pärt’s contribution to the organ repertoire includes four pieces that can be performed
on solo organ and several works for choir and organ.6 In conversation with Vittorio
Carrara in 1997, Pärt noted that he had studied organ with Hugo Lepnurm while he
was a student at the Tallinn Conservatory.7 He also acknowledged several organists
who have been advisors and collaborators, including Martin Haselbock, Thomas
Daniel Schlee and Lorenzo Ghielmi. His longest partnership has been with the British
organist Christopher Bowers Broadbent, and he attributes nearly all of the organ
registrations noted in the scores of his works for chorus and organ to his long
collaboration with Bowers Broadbent.8
The Südwestfunk in Baden–Baden commissioned Annum per Annum for the
900th anniversary of the cathedral in Speyer, Germany. The piece is dedicated to ‘the
honor of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, the patron saint of the cathedral at Speyer,
and its founder, Emperor Conrad II, [and] in devotion and gratitude dedicated to Saint
Cecilia, the patroness of sacred music, and the cathedral organist Leo Krämer.’9
Krämer gave the premiere on 12 October 1980 on the Scherpf organ.10
It is interesting that for Annum Pärt chose to set the Ordinary of the mass, the
unchanging parts of each service, since there is a tradition – albeit it small and largely

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French – of using the organ in the Low Mass (where the mass parts are spoken and
not sung) to play the Proper parts of the mass which change from day to day.
Although Annum could be used liturgically with a priest quietly saying the words to the
parts of the Ordinary, it is much more likely that Pärt only intended it as a concert
piece, either in a secular or sacred space.
Annum begins with an introduction in 12/8 in which two pitches, D and A, are
presented fortissimo with a repeated short/long rhythm.11 After three notated
measures Pärt indicates that the music should be repeated for about forty further
seconds, after which he specifies that the organ motor should be turned off and the
music continued until the wind is depleted. This ‘Introit’ serves to set a tonality in the
ear, removing any reference to what the listener has previously heard. In addition to its
musical function it focuses the mind on what’s to come and represents not only an
aural gateway into Pärt’s sound world, but also a metaphorical gateway into the
cathedral itself.
The next five sections are variations on a sequentially changing cantus firmus.
Each section is labeled with one of the letters K – G – C – S – A, which correspond to
the initials of the five sections of the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo,
Sanctus and Agnus Dei).12 They represent the mass, which every day ‘year by year’ has
been celebrated at the Cathedral.

Example 1. Annum per annum: Kyrie, mm. 1–2

Example 1 shows the first two measures of the Kyrie movement. The sparseness of
the textures and rhythms are indicative of Pärt’s compositional and theological
aesthetics: ‘I am tempted only when I experience something unknown, something new
and meaningful for me. It seems, however, that this unknown territory is sooner
reached by way of reduction than by growing complexity. Reduction certainly doesn’t
mean simplification, but it is the way – at least in an ideal scenario – to the most

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intense concentration on the essence of things.’ 13 He is quite specific how this process
happens for him: ‘In the compositional process I have always to find this nucleus first
from which the work will eventually emerge … Everything depends on which nucleus
or which part of the nucleus, I choose (or am able to choose at a given time) and on
the profundity of the consequences.’14 As critic Wilfred Mellers notes, ‘Pärt is
remarkable because he found it necessary, and possible, to pare away so much, leaving
the residue the more meaningful the more exiguous it had become.’15
Musically the five interior ‘mass’ movements are all composed in two
continuous sections each of four large measures, except the Agnus Dei, which has two
additional measures that are discussed further below. These large measures are the
nucleus of this piece. Although there is a developmental progression to the five
movements that echoes the text they signify, without studying Pärt’s sketches it isn’t
clear exactly which of the measures (or sub–measures) is the nucleus from which the
others are derived. It isn’t necessary to know this of course in order to appreciate the
piece, which is both logical and comprehensible in its design.
As seen in the five musical examples presented here, the left hand and pedal are
rhythmically and melodically similar in each movement and notated in 13/4. They
provide harmonic support for the more ornate right hand melody, providing a
counterpoint in one or occasionally two pitches that have rhythmic movement only
when the right hand melody is not moving. It makes sense to consider the left hand
and pedal as one voice. The style suggests that this is the case, so I shall now refer to
this as the tenor voice, using the terminology of organum.
The left hand is played on a single manual. Each measure starts with two pitches
(sometimes with an eighth note upbeat). The pedal is the least active part, punctuating
the texture with pitches and rhythms that complement the left hand line. The pedal
plays at the end of the third phrase in the right hand, ending the tenor part with two
pitches, the same way it began. The right hand measures consistently contain four
phrases separated by a quarter note rest. Continuing the use of medieval terminology, I
shall now refer to this as the duplum. The performance directions indicate the first
three phrases could be played on the same manual and the fourth on a different
manual (or choice of stops). It is possible that Pärt liked this idea because of the variety
of timbres it allows, but it also has the practical function of indicating the end of each
larger phrase with a punctuating change of registration. On a different level it may
perhaps represent the idea of versicle and response in which most of the text is said by
the priest with concluding responses by the congregation.
The main melodic and rhythmic interest is in the duplum, which becomes
increasingly ornamented in each movement until the Agnus Dei. This voice is notated
in 39/8, which corresponds directly with the 13/4 of the tenor voice. There is of
course no perception of different meters for the listener, so this difference in time
signature is either for the benefit of the composer (indicating an underlying
compositional method) or the performer (enabling a better conception of the form and
structure of the piece). In effect, the duplum sounds as though it is playing triplets

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against the tenor voice, so Pärt modifies the tenor to play triplets in order that a
consistent rhythmic pattern is heard between the two voices. The notion that the time
signatures are not important to the performance or comprehension of the piece is also
indicated by the fact that Pärt put them in parentheses and only indicated them at the
start of the Kyrie movement.

Example 2. Gloria, m. 1

For each right hand section Pärt has written florid organum above his own tenor,
usually supplying from four to six notes above each sustained tenor pitch. These are
composed using similar techniques to those used in the elaboration and improvisatory
style of medieval duplum. In the second movement, the Gloria, the principle technique
for Pärt’s duplum is the use of more than one pitch. Medieval organum would have
been more strict in its adherence to the number of parts used, however, Pärt uses two
pitches at the beginning and end of his tenor in Annum, so this provision of chords in
the duplum has a basis in Pärt’s own sound world right from the start. This is one of
the ways he has, as Clarke put it, remortgaged materials of the past.
Throughout the Gloria the two voices are louder and more robust as befits the
text, which is a song of both praise and supplication. In the third part of the first
measure (and elsewhere) Pärt introduces a B–natural, indicating a passing E mode.
Sometimes this reverts to B–flat to indicate the recurrence of a D mode. In the strict
tintinnabuli pieces composed at this time Pärt did not use accidentals, though he did in
later tintinnabuli works. In Annum the use of certain accidentals demonstrates his
understanding of the tonality of this type of medieval music and his adaptation for his
own needs.

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 Example 3. Credo, m. 1

The Credo is the most highly ornamented of the duplum parts, perhaps suggesting
some of the theological complexity of the text. Pärt has moved the rhythmic pulse up
to sixteenth notes and outlines the intervals used in previous movements with this
faster rhythmic elaboration. The movement is also marked up a further dynamic level
to forte, as part of a consistent progression of dynamic intensity to the Sanctus, which
becomes the zenith in a sequence of praise to God.
Half way through the Credo the mode shifts to the major where it remains for
the rest of the piece. This change comes at exactly the mid–point in the overall scheme
of the five movements, but it also has theological significance directly related to the
text. Since its adoption at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, the Nicene Creed has
been the principal summary of the Christian faith and is used in the liturgy of most
churches. It declares belief in God and in Jesus Christ and notes several important
characteristics of Christ including his Virgin birth and his crucifixion. Central to the
Christian faith is the belief that Christ rose from the dead and ascended to heaven.
This statement occurs about half way through the creed and is mirrored in Pärt’s
music, which through its change in modality moves from the mundane to the heavenly
realm.

Example 4. Sanctus, m. 1

The Sanctus text continues in both earthly and heavenly realms declaring, ‘heaven and
earth are full of your [God’s] glory.’ In the previous movement the change to D major
at the mid–point of the entire suite initiates at some level a mirror image for the
remainder of the piece. So, for the duplum in the Sanctus Pärt returns to the texture of

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the Gloria, with its short/long rhythms in quarter and eighth notes and its use of
chords rather than a single melodic line. The Sanctus is the loudest movement, marked
fortissimo and with an indication to use full organ. This is fitting for the theological
import of the text, which is a hymn of praise and rejoicing.

Example 5. Agnus Dei, m. 1

The final mass movement, the Agnus Dei, is marked quieter and slower than the
previous movement and is a reflective response to the most serene and mysterious part
of the mass. It mirrors the first movement, the Kyrie in rhythmic and melodic
phrasing, especially in the duplum part. In the first four movements of Annum the
duplum phrases are largely in the octave above middle C. In the Agnus the first two
measures are largely in the octave below middle C and the subsequent two measures
are often situated two octaves above. This variety of tessitura is another technique for
variation of the texture. In context, it is less aurally prominent than might be imagined
because the organ registration has been reduced from full organ (which would include
pipes speaking at several pitches at once), to pipes speaking at just concert pitch or the
octave above. The range of tessitura continues in the second half, which consists of six
measures, not two. Pärt has elaborated the section in order perhaps to relate to the
text, which consists of three repeated phrases with a change in the final response.16
Whatever the interpretative reason, musically the two extra measures affirm a strong
cadence in D major to solidify the end of the mass movements.
Pärt marks the final section of Annum as a Coda but it could also be considered
the Recessional that mirrors the opening Introit. It aims to recreate the opposite effect
of the introduction, using the same musical material now however firmly rooted in D
major. Rather than starting with the motor off and switching it on to mimic exactly
what happens in the introduction, Pärt simply notates a crescendo from pp to fff over
the space of approximately forty seconds. This music moves the listener out of the
aural and meditative space of the mass sections, and back into the world.
Pärt entered the Russian Orthodox Church in 1972. For him, ‘Religion
influences everything. Not just music, but everything.’17 Pärt’s musical connections to
both the theology and the emotion of each movement of the Ordinary of the mass are

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both explicit and implicit in Annum. On a different level, Pärt has himself described his
music in metaphysical terms. In explaining his tintinnabuli technique he stated: ‘The
M–voice [the melodic line] always signifies the subjective world, the daily egoistic life
of sin and suffering; the T–voice [the triadic tintinnabuli part], meanwhile, is the
objective realm of forgiveness. The M–voice may appear to wander, but it is always
held firmly by the T–voice.’18 He went on further to describe this in theological terms:
‘This can be likened to the eternal dualism of body and spirit, heaven and earth; but
the two voices are in reality one voice, a twofold single entity.’19 It is therefore
interesting to suggest that in Annum the duplum perhaps represents the clergy who are
actively and busily engaged in the daily rituals and routines of the church, principle
among them being the celebration of the mass. The tenor may represent the
congregation, the active witness to the church who support its fundamental work and
are consistently engaged but on a different level. This music is essentially a two–part
texture but unlike tintinnabulation, it isn’t homophonic. Whatever the case, it is as true
for the neo–medieval sound world of Annum as it is for the tintinnabuli works that ‘the
two voices are in reality one voice, a twofold single entity.’
As with the earlier organ work Trivium (1976), much of the effect of Annum lies
in the choice of registration for each movement, which enhances the character of each
section and highlights the compositional techniques at work. The score gives
indications as to pitch and timbre for each section that give a good overall sense of
how Pärt conceived the piece without discouraging effective choices made by the
discerning performer. The choice of timbre is an important element in Pärt’s
compositional aesthetic and is embodied in the many versions that exist of some works
by Pärt. Spiegel im Spiegel, for example, exists in more than a dozen versions, ranging
from the initial violin and piano piece from 1978 to a version for saxophone and piano
in 2011. This is because in Pärt’s view the essence of the work is contained in the notes
themselves and they are only superficially colored by timbre.
In the mid–1970s, after his period of artistic reorientation, Pärt composed a
number of tintinnabuli pieces that are strict in their compositional procedures,
including Pari intervallo (1976/1980), another organ work. He also experimented with
techniques such as mensuration canon (Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten [1980]), and
these techniques came to a peak in both length and complexity in Passio (1982), his 70–
minute setting of the St John Passion.
Eventually Pärt moved away from strict application of compositional rules such
as those that govern the rhythm, structure and modes of Passio. Pärt’s wife, Nora,
observed that, ‘The first period was very strict ... It was very important for Arvo to
give himself a system, rules and discipline. And over time, Arvo had more and more
freedom.’20 Annum per Annum and some other works from this early mature phase such
as Tabula Rasa (1977) show Pärt was actively engaged in a broad search for self–
expression that was not, as many people believe, entirely devoted to tintinnabulation. It
is the foundational work done in experimenting with other procedures that has enabled
him to continue to refine his techniques so that a relaxing of the strictures of pre–

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compositional methods means that pieces such as Magnificat (1989) and more recently
Silhouette (Hommage à Gustav Eiffel) (2009) can be constructed with new levels of
engagement with old materials. It is interesting to note that, unlike neo–classical
composers who sought to remortgage materials of the Classical period not only
through updating the style but particularly through the use of form, Pärt’s neo–
medieval aesthetic is based on style not form, so he does not name his pieces clausula,
motet and so on.
It is possible that Pärt’s oeuvre would have been as small as Webern’s if he had
limited himself to tintinnabulation. Instead, with a catalog over nearly two hundred
pieces, Pärt has managed to become a significant voice, composing music that is
compelling, evocative, and beautiful and that has found enormous popular and critical
acclaim. Why is this music so successful? Paul Hillier believes that it is because Pärt
‘creates an intense, vibrant music that stands apart from the world and beckons us to
an inner quietness and an inner exultation.’21
Ultimately, in our postmodern understanding, the overriding issue is
encapsulated by Nora Pärt who said, ‘I believe that Arvo’s music is meant more for the
ears than the intellect.’22 Even though it is not perhaps as hauntingly beautiful as some
of the tintinnabuli works, Annum is important as an element in the development of
Pärt’s mature style and, like so much of his music, it helps us in our search for our own
particular and personal reality.

Notes
1 David Clarke, ‘Parting glances’, in The Musical Times, Vol. 134 (Dec., 1993), 682.
2 Paul Hiller, Arvo Pärt, Oxford: OUP, 1997, 87.
3 Svetlana Saveno, ‘Musica sacra of Arvo Pärt’, in Ex oriente: Ten composers of the former USSR (Valeria

Tsenova, ed.), Berlin: Verlag Ernst Kuhn, 2002, 158.

4 Martin Elste, ‘An interview with Arvo Pärt’, in Fanfare, March–April 1988, 340.
5 Cited in Current Biography Yearbook 1995, New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1995, 456, and elsewhere.
6 The four solo works are: Trivium (1976, Sikorsky, Hamburg); Pari Intervallo (‘Equal interval’, 1976/1980,
Universal Edition 17480 [published in Das neue Orgelalbum II]); Annum per Annum (‘Year by year’, 1980,
Universal Edition 17179); Mein Weg hat Gipfel und Wellentäler (‘My path has its peaks and its valleys...’ 1989,
Universal Edition 19545). For further details see: Andrew Shenton, ‘Arvo Pärt’s Organ Music’, in The
American Organist, December 2010, 76–78.
7 Vittorio Carrara, ‘Dare calore al suono freddo dell’organo’, in Arte organaria e organistica, April–June 1997,
12.
8 Ibid.
9 From the preface to the score (Universal Edition 17179).
10 This organ was removed in 2009 and replaced with a new instrument by Seifert in 2011.
[http://cms.bistum–
speyer.de/www2/index.php?myELEMENT=245731&mySID=efcbd2b9fdf13549b70f90d5f29d9075]
(accessed 30 March 2012).
11 The two pitches are played at several different octaves on the manuals and pedals, but sounding at many
more by virtue of the different ranks of pipes on the organ.

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12 The full text of the Sanctus includes the words ‘Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. Hosanna in
excelsis’. These are often separated in musical settings and called the Benedictus. Pärt’s setting is not a
literal setting of the text so he does not make this distinction.
13 Geoffrey J. Smith, ‘Sources of invention: An interview with Arvo Pärt’, in The Musical Times, Vol. 140

(Fall 1999), 19.

14 Ibid.
15 Wilfred Mellers, Celestial Music? Some Masterpieces of European Religious Music, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer,
2002, 271.
16 The text in English is: ‘Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, who takes away the
sins of the world, grant us peace’.
17 Jamie McCarthy, ‘An interview with Arvo Pärt’, in Contemporary Music Review 12/2 (1995), 64.
18 Hillier, 96.
19 Ibid.
20 Arthur Lubow, ‘Arvo Pärt: The sound of spirit’, in New York Times Magazine, October 15, 2010
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17part–t.html?pagewanted=all].
21 Paul Hillier, ‘Arvo Pärt – Magister Ludi’, in The Musical Times, Vol. 130, March 1989, 134.
22 Enzo Restagno, Arvo Pärt peeglis: vestlused, esseed ja artiklid, trans. Maarja Kangro, and others, Tallinn, Eesti
Eesti Entsüklopeediakirjastus, 2005, 87.

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