PÄRT, ARVO

(11 September 1935, Paide, Estonia)

While supporting himself with music for theater and film, Pärt first attracted great attention and political reprobation withCredo(1968) for chorus, orchestra, and piano. He then developed a newhomophonictechnique calledtintinnabuli, in which bell-like static triads form the ground for a more prominent, usuallymodal, melodic figure.Tintinnabulibecame the basis for hisSt.JohnPassion(1982) and for most of the later compositions for chorus or small vocal ensemble, most on Christian texts or themes. He left Estonia in 1980 and settled in West Berlin in 1982.