http://estonianworld.com/culture/svetlana-savenko-arvo-parts-work-fundamentally-innovative/more at link above...
Hele-Mai Poobus interviews the Russian musicologist, Svetlana Savenko, on the Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt.
Svetlana Savenko is a musicologist, teacher and a singer. She graduated cum laude from the Moscow State Conservatory, majoring in music theory under Juri Holopov; the topic of her 2002 PhD thesis was “The World of Stravinsky” (“Мир Стравинского”). Her main fields of research are 20th and 21st century Russian and Western music, as well as most avant-garde music. In 1992, she received the Paul Sacher Stiftung scholarship in Switzerland.
Can you say how long you’ve been acquainted with the works of Arvo Pärt?
It’s been quite a while. In the late 1960s, I studied musicology at the Moscow State Conservatory. One of my professors, Juri Holopov, was extremely well-versed in everything that was happening in contemporary music. Arvo Pärt was a well-known name already back then; his works Nekrolog, Our Garden, Collage über B-A-C-H, as well as Pro et contra had already garnered interest. They didn’t have any pompousness, and they were unique. And although the composers from different Soviet republics were in constant communication with each other, and Pärt came to Moscow quite often; at one point, he disappeared from our sight. We had no idea where he was and what he was doing.
A few years later, a recording of his Symphony No. 3 reached us, some way or another. I listened to it and I was completely blown away. It sounded like early music, with the unmistakable air of a contemporary composition. Such a change in orientation and sound was totally unexpected; I didn’t really know what to think of it at first.
After Symphony No. 3, Pärt disappeared again, until the ensemble Hortus Musicus performed Pärt’s first tintinnabuli works in Moscow. There was a sense of expectation in the air; even the titles of the works were so different. This concert resulted in many contradictory opinions in our circle: some were praising this total change of direction, some not. No-one remained indifferent. I admit that at the time, I didn’t know how to receive that music; I just didn’t understand what it was about.
What fascinates you in this music, both as a musicologist and as a listener?
As a musicologist, I cannot really answer this question, because I’ve focused more on Pärt’s earlier works, and his compositions from the early stages of tintinnabuli, not so much on his later works. It is easy to assume that his orderly music, based on a clear structure and strict formulae, is simple to analyse, but there are many invisible layers in his music. It is difficult to get through to the main essence, the most important aspect.
I think that both as a listener and a scientist, I am most enchanted by the depth of his music. It’s not a pose, nor created with an ostentatious goal, but it has been born out of an inner need. Over the years, avant-garde music has been one of my interests. And it seems to me that in the case of Pärt, not only are his earlier compositions avant-garde, but also his later works, related to tintinnabuli. Because at its core, it’s still innovative.
