Tabula rasa
Arvo Pärt (b.1935)

THE STORY

     Estonian composer Arvo Pärt took a vow of public silence from 1968 to 1976, seeking “artistic reorientation.” He emerged from this period with a new compositional style and some of his best-known works, including 1977’s Tabula rasa, meaning “clean slate.”
     “Before one says something, perhaps it is better to say nothing,” Pärt proposed. “Ideally, a silent pause is something sacred … If someone approaches silence with love, then this might give birth to music.”
     For him, it gave birth to a style that he called “tintinnabulation,” which means that he limited the notes he used in a given work almost exclusively to the pitches of a single scale and its triad, creating a bell-like effect. Perhaps it should not be surprising that the emerging style of a composer who had been silent for nearly a decade would be minimalistic, but the soloists who performed the premiere were taken aback. “There were so few notes,” violinist Gidon Kremer said, recalling his first impression of the score. But it soon became apparent that many subtleties and complexities were hidden in the seemingly simple work.
     The double concerto is written for two solo violins, prepared piano (the strings of the piano are separated by dampers and metal screws, altering the tone to be more bell-like), and string orchestra. It was composed to pair with Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso, which employs a similar instrumentation; Schnittke himself was the piano soloist on the first performance, together with violinists Gidon Kremer and Tatjana Grindenko.
     Fellow Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür said about the premiere performance: "I was carried beyond. I had the feeling that eternity was touching me through this music … nobody wanted to start clapping.” Pärt’s wife, Nora, similarly stated years later, “Never again have I experienced the silence that took over the assembly hall at the premiere.”
     Tabula rasa has become a “cult” piece in the classical music world. Kremer describes it as a manifesto of concentrating on important things and declared that it changed his life. Many others have had similar experiences; it was reported that patients at AIDS and cancer treatment centers in the 1980s often requested to hear the meditative second movement, Silentium, near the end of their lives. 
     Tabula rasa is a testament to the fact that less can be more, newness and evolution can be found even in repetition, and silence can be as expressive as sound. 

LISTEN FOR

• Eight variations—each one separated by a moment of silence which becomes shorter each time—in the first movement, Ludus (which means “game" in Italian)

• Three groupings of instruments—the solo violins, first and second violins, and violas and cellos—each moving at a different rhythmic speed in Silentium; the slowest voice is in the solo violins and requires the utmost concentration from the musicians

INSTRUMENTATION

Two solo violins; prepared piano, strings