Pärt was born inPaide,Järva County, Estonia, on 11 September 1935.[1] He was raised by his mother and stepfather inRakvere in northern Estonia.[2] He began to experiment with the top and bottom notes of the family's piano as the middle register was damaged.[3]
Pärt's musical education began at the age of seven when he began attending music school in Rakvere. By his early teenage years, Pärt was writing his own compositions. His first serious study came in 1954 at the Tallinn Music Middle School, but less than a year later he temporarily abandoned it to fulfill military service, playingoboe and percussion in the army band.[4] After his military service he attended theTallinn Conservatory, where he studied composition withHeino Eller[5] and it was said of him, "he just seemed to shake his sleeves and the notes would fall out".[6] During the 1950s, he also completed his first vocal composition, thecantataMeie aed ('Our Garden') for children's choir and orchestra. He graduated in 1963.
As a student, Pärt composed music for film and the stage, creating scores for over fifty movies. Although filmmaking and film music were not primary sources of inspiration for him, these compositions provided a medium for exploring serial and tonal techniques—an amalgamation that would later influence his collage works of the 1960s.[7] From 1957 to 1967, he worked as a sound producer for the Estonian public radio broadcasterEesti Rahvusringhääling.
Tikhon Khrennikov criticized Pärt in 1962 for employingserialism inNekrolog (1960), the first 12-tone music written in Estonia,[8] which exhibited his "susceptibility to foreign influences". But nine months later Pärt won First Prize in a competition of 1,200 works, awarded by the all-Union Society of Composers, indicating the Soviet regime's inability to agree on what was permissible.[9] His first overtly sacred piece,Credo (1968), was a turning point in his career and life; on a personal level he had reached a creative crisis that led him to renounce the techniques and means of expression used so far; on a social level the religious nature of this piece resulted in him being unofficially censured and his music disappearing from concert halls. For the next eight years he composed very little, focusing instead on study ofmedieval andRenaissance music to find his new musical language. In 1972 he converted fromLutheranism toOrthodox Christianity.[10][11]
Pärt reemerged as a composer in 1976 with music in his new compositional style and technique, tintinnabuli.[11]
In 2014The Daily Telegraph described Pärt as possibly "the world's greatest living composer" and "by a long way, Estonia's most celebrated export". When asked how Estonian he felt his music to be, Pärt replied: "I don't know what is Estonian... I don't think about these things." Unlike many of his fellow Estonian composers, Pärt never found inspiration in the country'snational epic,Kalevipoeg, even in his early works. Pärt said, "MyKalevipoeg is Jesus Christ."[8]
Pärt is often identified with the school ofminimalism and, more specifically, that of mystic minimalism orholy minimalism.[13] He is considered a pioneer of the latter style, along with contemporariesHenryk Górecki andJohn Tavener.[14] Although his fame initially rested on instrumental works such asTabula Rasa andSpiegel im Spiegel, hischoral works have also come to be widely appreciated.
In this period of Estonian history, Pärt was unable to encounter many musical influences from outside the Soviet Union except for a few illegal tapes and scores. Although Estonia had been an independent state at the time of Pärt's birth, theSoviet Union occupied it in 1940 as a result of the Soviet–NaziMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact; and the country would then remain under Soviet domination—except for the three-year period of German wartime occupation—for the next 51 years.
Pärt's works are generally divided into two periods. He composed his early works using a range ofneo-classical styles influenced byShostakovich,Prokofiev, andBartók. He then began to compose usingSchoenberg'stwelve-tone technique and serialism. This, however, not only earned the ire of the Soviet establishment but also proved to be a creative dead-end. When Soviet censors banned early works, Pärt entered the first of several periods of contemplative silence, during which he studied choral music from the 14th to 16th centuries.[5] In this context, Pärt's biographer,Paul Hillier, observed that "he had reached a position of complete despair in which the composition of music appeared to be the most futile of gestures, and he lacked the musical faith and willpower to write even a single note."[15]
In his workCredo (1968), written for solo piano, orchestra, and chorus, he employedavant-garde techniques. This work differed in its forms and context from his earlieratonal and tintinnabula works. Inspired by 14th and 16th century liturgical music, he used apoly-stylistic compositional technique to express his faith in God while incorporating avant-garde techniques of the 20th century. By definition, acredo expresses beliefs and guides religious action, and in his work it represents his faith in God. The Soviets eventually banned the work due to its clear religious context, even though it incorporated avant-garde and a constructivist procedure.[16]
The music that began to emerge after this period was radically different. This period of new compositions included the 1977 worksFratres,Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten andTabula Rasa.[5] Pärt describes the music of this period as "tintinnabuli"—like the ringing of bells.Spiegel im Spiegel (1978) is a well-known example used in many films. The music is characterised by simpleharmonies, often single unadorned notes, ortriads, which form the basis of Western harmony. These are reminiscent of ringing bells. Tintinnabuli works are rhythmically simple and do not change tempo. In this technique, each syllable of a word is assigned to a pitch and a duration. Once two or three words have been connected, a phrase has been made.[17] Another characteristic of Pärt's later works is that they are frequently settings for sacred texts, although he mostly choosesLatin or theChurch Slavonic language used in Orthodox liturgy instead of his nativeEstonian language. Large-scale works inspired by religious texts includeBerliner Messe,St. John Passion andTe Deum; the author of the famous text ofLitany is the 4th-century theologianJohn Chrysostom.[18] Choral works from this period includeMagnificat andThe Beatitudes.[5] Though such works have obviously been intended as religious,Andreas Dorschel suggested that it is up for sociological scrutiny whether Pärt's music has lead its 20th and 21st century audiences into religion or, rather, has replaced religion for them.[19]
Pärt was the most performed living composer in the world from 2011 to 2018, but then the second-most performed composer, afterJohn Williams.[20] In 2022, Arvo was back to the top in Bachtrack. The two switched position again back and forth in 2023 and 2024.[21]
Even in Estonia, Arvo was getting the same feeling that we were all getting... I love his music, and I love the fact that he is such a brave, talented man… He's completely out of step with thezeitgeist and yet he's enormously popular, which is so inspiring. His music fulfills a deep human need that has nothing to do with fashion.[22]
In response to themurder of the Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow on 7 October 2006, Pärt declared that all of his works performed in 2006 and 2007 would be in honour of her death, issuing the following statement: "Anna Politkovskaya staked her entire talent, energy and—in the end—even her life on saving people who had become victims of the abuses prevailing in Russia."[29]
Pärt was honoured as the featured composer of the 2008Raidió Teilifís Éireann Living Music Festival[30] in Dublin, Ireland. He was also commissioned by Louth Contemporary Music Society[31] to compose a new choral work based on "Saint Patrick's Breastplate", which premiered in 2008 inCounty Louth, Ireland. The new work,The Deer's Cry, is his first Irish commission, and received its debut inDrogheda andDundalk in February 2008.[32]
Pärt converted to Orthodox Christianity in 1972 upon marrying his second wife, Nora.[10]
In 1980, after a prolonged struggle with Soviet officials, he was allowed to emigrate with his wife and their two sons. He lived first inVienna, where he took Austrian citizenship, and then relocated toBerlin in 1981. He returned to Estonia around the turn of the 21st century and for a while lived alternately in Berlin[63] andTallinn.[5] He now resides inLaulasmaa, about 35 kilometres (22 mi) from Tallinn.[64] He speaks fluent German as a result of living in German-speaking countries since 1980.[65][66][67]
In 2010, the Pärt family established theArvo Pärt Centre, an institution responsible for maintaining his personal archive, in the village of Laulasmaa. A new building of the centre opened to the visitors on 17 October 2018, containing a concert hall, a library, and research facilities. The centre also offers educational programmes for children and operates as an international information centre on Pärt's life and work.[68]
In April 2020, although Pärt rarely gives interviews, he spoke to the Spanish newspaperABC about theCOVID-19 pandemic, stating that it was a "megafast" and reminded him to follow the example ofJohn Updike, who "once said that he tried to work with the same calm as the masters of theMiddle Ages, who carved the church pews in places where it was impossible to see them".[69]
On 11 September 2025 he celebrated his 90th birthday.[70]
^For example, in an essay by Christopher Norris called "Post-modernism: a guide for the perplexed," found in Gary K. Browning, Abigail Halcli, Frank Webster,Understanding Contemporary Society: Theories of the Present, 2000.
^Andreas Dorschel, 'Ganz einfach?' In:Süddeutsche Zeitung no. 83, 11 April 2007, p. 14: "Von hier ausgehend könnte man nun die Frage nach der Frömmigkeit neu stellen, jenseits von Anekdote und Biographie, dafür – dies erheischt der sagenhafte Erfolg Pärts in der westlichen Kultur – mit einer gescheiten Portion Soziologie. Denn ob Pärts Musik ihre Hörer zur Religion hinführt, wie es unverkennbar ihr Anspruch ist, oder Religion für sie ersetzt, das steht keineswegs fest."
^"Arvo Pärt commemorates Politkovskaja"(PDF).Universal Edition Newsletter (Winter 2006/2007). Universal Edition: 13. 2007.Archived(PDF) from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved19 February 2011.
^Kotta, Kerri (2018). Mixed identities in Arvo Pärt's Adam's Lament. In David G. Hebert & Mikolaj Rykowski, eds.,Music Glocalization: Heritage and Innovation in a Digital Age. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, p.133.
