My year with Arvo Part - he is a man of courage, humility and authenticity
“I apologise, but I cannot help you with words. I am a composer and express myself with sounds.” This was the opening of Arvo Pärt’s short speech at the Vatican in February 2015. The Pontifical Council for Culture had invited Estonian-born composer to speak at a plenary assembly that focused on the role of women in the Catholic church.
The speech that followed, which we documented in our film The Lost Paradise, was brilliant. And still Pärt made it clear with his opening words that he feels visibly uncomfortable in the role of speaker, and that he would rather let his music do the talking.
And Pärt’s music does, in fact, say an awful lot about him as a composer and his view of the world. His compositions have always fascinated me - you could call it love at first listen. Back then, and still to this day, I could hardly put into words exactly what accounts for this fascination. One thing is clear: one only has to hear a few bars and know immediately that you are listening to something special.
I first developed the idea to create a film about his music back in 1997. When an Estonian television station approached producer Paul Smaczny last year with the idea of making a documentary about the composer based on the music-theatre production Pärt’s Adam’s Passion directed by Robert Wilson, a lifelong wish finally came true.
But how does one make a film about an artist who is notoriously shy and avoids all contact with the media? We quickly learned that it requires time and patience.
Pärt was very open to the project from the start, but his schedule was filled to the brim, especially during this, his 80th birthday year. As soon became clear, with Pärt, one has to wait for the right moment. Long-term planning is difficult and the best results occur spontaneously.
‘One has to wait for the right moment’ Photograph: Kristjan-Jaak Nuudi/Accentus Music
And so the plan to use the world premiere production of Adam’s Passion, staged in a former submarine factory in Tallinn, as the outer bracket for the film was perfect. He has been engaged in the topic of Adam very intensively for several years. Starting with rehearsals, we could slowly approach Pärt through observation. From there, we followed him all the way to Tokyo and the Vatican. The further we moved from Tallinn, the closer we got to Pärt as a person, delving into his biography as well as the content of his work during our travels. The help of companions such as Tõnu Kaljuste, Sofia Gubaidulina, Paul Hillier and Gidon Kremer along the way proved invaluable.
During the filming, we soon saw that Arvo Pärt can and will talk, but it had to be the right moment, and a topic that he considered important. Pärt is a person who observes his environment with very alert eyes. He sees exactly what works and what doesn’t. He sees the injustices and the imbalances of our world today and takes a political stand again and again. And yet I would not define his work as political, but as deeply human.
In order to understand Pärt, one needs to know that he is a religious person. You don’t need to be religious to feel his music, just as you don’t need to be religious to feel the music of Bach. But if you want to listen to his work structurally then it helps to know of Pärt’s faith and the meaning of the texts he has chosen, and that he becomes subordinate to the word in his composition. He has a deep humility, with which he follows the direct tradition of Bach: his music is “in the honour of God”.
This requires courage. As a man of faith, an artist makes himself vulnerable. Pärt has been attacked from many sides during his lifetime, whether by party officials in Soviet times or from representatives of the Modern School after his emigration to the west. One bows to a great composer who unflinchingly follows his path, authentic and real. And if we have succeeded in capturing a little of this authenticity in the film, then we have achieved our goal.
Günter Atteln is director of Arvo Pärt/Robert Wilson: The Lost Paradise, out now on Accentus Music.