Homage to Arvo Pärt

In September 2016 I had the honour of teaching and giving a recital at the EMTA (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre) in Tallinn.

When I discovered that in this academy the famous Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, an extremely important figure in the history of twentieth century music, had studied, I made a request to some of my composer friends. This was to write some short pieces “for” Arvo Pärt. The reply was immediate, thus I was able to have the satisfaction of performing for the first time the following four short pieces in the recital which I gave at the EMTA on September 28, 2016.

In these pieces the reference to features of Arvo Pärt’s style of writing appears to me to be quite evident, even though only one of them uses a composition of his as a starting point: the Magnificat quoted in Ostinato by Marco Reghezza. Paolo Ugoletti, by playing on the assonance “Pärt”-“Parts”, has written a dense and expressive three-part counterpoint.

His pupil, Andrea Vezzoli, has created an evocative concert piece over a ground bass of five notes with a refined Pärt-like metric and contrapuntal treatment, while the sweet Lullaby by Alessandro Spazzoli, a composer who has for a long time studied Arvo Pärt’s style, is, in my view, one of the most “Pärt-like” pieces.
(Piero Bonaguri)