Bridging Time Through Music: Arvo Pärt 90. Carl Orff

Conductor: Arvo Volmer
Chorus Master: Heli Jürgenson
Soloists: Elena Brazhnyk (soprano), Aare Saal (baritone), Rafael Dicenta (tenor)
Estonian National Opera Chorus, Boys’ Choir and Orchestra
    
PROGRAMME:
Arvo Pärt “Credo” (1968)
Arvo Pärt Symphony No. 3 (1971)

Intermission

Carl Orff “Carmina Burana” (1935/36)
    
The concert is dedicated to the 90th birthday of Arvo Pärt. The program brings together the works of two powerful musical masters, Carl Orff and Arvo Pärt. Both Orff and Pärt have left a profound mark on the world of music, each being a unique voice of their era. Both composers seek simplicity and clarity in their music. Orff drew inspiration from ancient texts, folklore, and medieval music, while Pärt found his in Gregorian chant and early polyphony. Both created works rooted in the past, yet their influence resonates strongly in the present.
“Credo” (Latin for “I believe”) is one of the most important and dramatic collage pieces in Pärt’s career. It marks the summary of his early work and is also a key to understanding his stylistic turn and subsequent compositions. As in Pärt’s other compositions from the 1960s, the musical material of “Credo” combines elements of dodecaphony, sonorism, collage and aleatory technique. This, however, was the first time his music was based on a holy text that became the foundation for the musical structure of the entire piece.
The underlying text for “Credo” is in fact itself a collage. Pärt has combined a phrase from the Christian Statement of Faith, “I Believe in Jesus Christ”, with an excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel according to Matthew, which defines the essence of Christianity: do not respond to evil with more evil. Like the text, the music too brings together two conflicting worlds.
    
Symphony No. 3, is one of the first works that was considerably different from his earlier compositions and heralded Pärt’s new creative principles. The three movements of the composition follow each other attacca (i.e. without any break). The composer’s interest in monody and early polyphony is clearly visible here. The harmonic and melodic material brings to mind choir music from the 14th and 15th centuries, even though Pärt does not use any quotations. The polyphonic development in all movements of the piece do not emphasize the atmosphere from behind centuries, but rather, translate the thematic material into contemporary musical language. 
In Symphony No. 3 Pärt aimed to apply the notion of the movement of independent voices, imagining the entire structure of the composition as a metaphor for building a city.
Arvo Pärt: “Small, increasingly numerous centres that spread out until they touch each other and form a unity. The same thing happens with the harmonic progression in the piece that is evolved from a series of short cadences. Upon this idea is based the idea of polyphonic complexity. I had succeeded in building a bridge within myself between yesterday and today – a yesterday that was several centuries old – and this encouraged me to go on exploring.”  (Enzo Restagno (2012). Arvo Pärt in Conversation. Dalkey Archive Press, p. 29)
Symphony No. 3 is dedicated to Neeme Järvi, who conducted the Estonian Television and Radio Symphony Orchestra at the premiere of the symphony at Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn on 21 September 1972.
 Source: Arvo Pärt Centre
     
The concert finishes with the grand and ardent scenic cantata “Carmina Burana” by Carl Orff praising life and sun. Created in 1936 for chorus, soloists and orchestra, it was based on 24 poems from the medieval collection “Carmina Burana” found in the Benediktbeuern Abbey in the Bavarian Alps. The poems are thought to be written by a group of clergy and their students retelling about love, nature and wine. Orff’s powerful music binds the medieval and contemporary, praising the vitality of human nature.