Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt, born in 1935, spent years in near-silence before arriving at the method he called tintinnabuli — a way of writing in which a melodic line and a line built from the notes of a single triad move together, so that the music stays close to one chord and to the ear of plainchant. Fratres, Spiegel im Spiegel and Für Alina all come from the late 1970s and are still his most performed works.

He has been the most performed living composer in the world in most years since 2011. The Arvo Pärt Centre opened to the public in Laulasmaa, Estonia, in 2018.

He appears here as a composer rather than a performer: what you hear in a concert hall is his music in other people's hands.