Published
Tabula Rasa
In 1968, Arvo Pärt fell publicly silent and entered a period of “artistic reorientation.” During this period, he developed his tintinnabuli style of composition, which pairs two voices, one playing the notes of a scale (Melodic Voice), and the other playing notes of a triad (Tintinnabuli Voice). Pärt emerged from this period of innovation in 1976, and composed many of his most well known works, including Fratres, Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, and Summa, all written in the tintinnabuli style.
The piece is dedicated to violinist Gidon Kremer.
The first performance of Tabula Rasa in Tallinn 1977 was considered to be a major success. The composer Erkki-Sven Tüür, said about the performance: “I was carried beyond. I had the feeling that eternity was touching me through this music…nobody wanted to start clapping.”
In an article in The New Yorker in December 2002, music critic Alex Ross discussed the use of Tabula Rasa in palliative care for AIDS and cancer patients facing the end of their disease. One caretaker reported having been asked by a dying patient to play the “angel music,” referring to the second movement of Tabula Rasa, “Silentium.”
“Tintinnabulation is an area I sometimes wander into when I am searching for answers – in my life, my music, my work. In my dark hours, I have the certain feeling that everything outside this one thing has no meaning. The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises – and everything that is unimportant falls away. Tintinnabulation is like this. . . . The three notes of a triad are like bells. And that is why I call it tintinnabulation.
Being the second movement of Tabula rasa, Silentium is one of the compositions Arvo Pärt broke his long-lasting self-imposed silence with. The apparent paradox of silence being broken with silence is inherent in the concept, since in the strict sense there is no silence at all but only noise below the threshold of audibility. To this effect, in Silentium Pärt makes hearable what is typically unhearable. In the philosophical concept of Tabula rasa that can be traced back to Aristotle, the human soul resembles an unscribed tablet. Perceptions lead to impressions on the tablet. Silentium thus reflects the experience of silence.
In my paper, I will look into the notion of “silence” in philosophical and spiritual contexts and elaborate on the paradox of sounding silence as experience of numinous presence.
The Sound(s) of Silence: Presence of the Unhearable in Arvo Pärt’s Silentium by Andreas Waczkat – download pdf