Ian Thomson at The New Statesman:
Arvo Pärt, the pre-eminent religious composer of our time, was born in 1935 in Estonia, before its Soviet occupation. His music suggests the contemplative devotion and purity of Gregorian plainchant and Renaissance church chorale, though it could only have been written today, being at once archaic and abstract-modern. With its sense of stasis and light, the music reflects the immensity of the Baltic landscape and Estonia’s own forested plains. Under communism, Pärt fell foul of the Soviet censors as his music defied official atheism. His work is shaped by his Eastern Orthodox faith; it is a form of prayer.
Pärt, who turned 90 on 11 September, has retired from public life and ceased to compose. He can still occasionally be glimpsed at the Arvo Pärt Centre, a beautiful glass-encased building that opened in 2018 on the edge of a pine forest close to Tallinn, Estonia’s capital.
more here.
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