Le 28 juin 2017
de 12h00 à 12h30
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
amphithéâtre 6
Séance - Analysing Arvo Pärt's Music
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Svetlana Savenko
The creativity of Arvo Pärt (born 1935) is widely known by now throughout the world; works of the composer are popular in various social and professional circles. Most of his works since the 1970s belongs to the traditional genres of Christian liturgical tradition; they are based on sacred words as a substantial and structural phenomenon. Nevertheless, in his avant-garde works of the 1960s he used techniques of serial dodecaphony and total serialism, Klangfarbenkomposition, extended instrumental playing, collage and polystylistics. The last composition of such kind was ‘Credo’ (1968) whereupon there was a period of almost complete silence, which lasted about eight years. Pärt called his new style tintinnabuli (lat. little bells). It was in sharp contrast to earlier avant-garde writing, based on binary oppositions: variability – stability, dissonance – euphony, chromatic – diatonic, new techniques of playing and notation – traditional (or old) ways of playing and scoring.
However, we can see continuity of various levels between the two styles Pärt; its investigation is the main purpose of the present study. In the first place there are relations on the level of aesthetics and creative psychology, and then in the field of compositional techniques which are permanently marked by a high degree of rationality.
The main conclusion of the present study is to look anew at the phenomenon of Arvo Pärt’s creativity, which developed between the poles of revolution and evolution.
