Arvo Part (Oxford Studies of Composers)

Paul Hillier

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198166168 ISBN 13: 9780198166160

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1996

The music of the Estonian-born composer Arvo Part is a unique and powerful voice in the contemporary world. Using a tonal idiom based on a mixture of scales and triads, Part created a style that he calls 'tintinnabuli'. Listening to it, one is reminded of the passionate and tranquility of some Russian icon, or of certain memorable scenes in the films of Andrei Tarkovsky. In this book, the first full-length study of Part, Paul Hillier explores the tintinnabuli works in considerable depth. He also examines the music of Part's earlier, somewhat neglected serial period, and charts the composer's steady evolution towards the 'abstract tonality' of his later years. In addition, a biographical chapter and discussion of topics such as Russian Orthodox spirituality, minimalism, and the influence of early music, combine to make this a substantial introduction to Part's music. Hillier also draws on his own experience of working with the composer to offer thoughts on various performance issues.

Review:

This book is perhaps most valuable as an in-depth study of Pärt's attempt to 'learn how to walk again as a composer' ... Hillier gives a most illuminating account of Pärt's determination to pare down and reconstruct both his musical ideas and his technique ... This book is the best possible refutation of the notion that Pärt's music is a simple remortgaging of a past musical idiom. (Peter Quinn, Tempo 202)

The first English-language book devoted to Pärt ... Hillier is especially qualified to speak on Pärt's work ... the book also provides an apt amount of biographical scene setting. (Billboard, 5 July 1997)

a detailed work-by-work study by a leading expert who knows the composer, fleshed out with biographical details and useful appendices; there are copious music examples ... a highly detailed text which veers between analytical charts and more straightforward descriptive writing (Gramophone, September 1997)

About the Author:

Paul Hillier is Professor of Music at the University of California, Davis. He has made over forty recordings as a singer and conductor and is the editor of 300 Years of Partsongs, English Romantic Partsongs (OUP), The Catch Book (OUP), and Le Beau Ballet d'Amour.