Editing Arvo Pärt (section)

===Development===
[[File:Arvo Pärt, 2011.jpg|thumb|Pärt at the [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Estonia)|Estonian Foreign Ministry]] in 2011]]
Pärt's works are generally divided into two periods. He composed his early works using a range of [[Neoclassicism (music)|neo-classical]] styles influenced by [[Dmitri Shostakovich|Shostakovich]], [[Sergei Prokofiev|Prokofiev]], and [[Béla Bartók|Bartók]]. He then began to compose using [[Arnold Schoenberg|Schoenberg's]] [[twelve-tone technique]] and serialism. This, however, not only earned the ire of the Soviet establishment but also proved to be a creative dead-end. When Soviet censors banned early works, Pärt entered the first of several periods of contemplative silence, during which he studied choral music from the 14th to 16th centuries.<ref name="playbill" /> In this context, Pärt's biographer, [[Paul Hillier]], observed that "he had reached a position of complete despair in which the composition of music appeared to be the most futile of gestures, and he lacked the musical faith and willpower to write even a single note."<ref>P. Hillier, ''Arvo Pärt'', 1997, p. 64.</ref>

In his work ''Credo'' (1968), written for solo piano, orchestra, and chorus, he employed [[Avant-garde music|avant-garde]] techniques. This work differed in its forms and context from his earlier [[Atonality|atonal]] and tintinnabula works. Inspired by 14th and 16th century liturgical music, he used a [[Polystylism|poly-stylistic]] compositional technique to express his faith in God while incorporating avant-garde techniques of the 20th century. By definition, a [[credo]] expresses beliefs and guides religious action, and in his work it represents his faith in God. The Soviets eventually banned the work due to its clear religious context, even though it incorporated avant-garde and a constructivist procedure.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Medić|first=Ivana|date=2010|title=I Believe… in What? Arvo Pärt's and Alfred Schnittke's Polystylistic Credos|url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1179/136174210X12814458213727|journal=Slavonica|language=en|volume=16|issue=2|pages=96–111|doi=10.1179/136174210X12814458213727|s2cid=159776256|issn=1361-7427}}</ref>

The spirit of early European [[Polyphony#European_polyphony|polyphony]] informed the composition of Pärt's transitional [[Symphony No. 3 (Pärt)|Third Symphony (1971)]]; after that, he immersed himself in early music, reinvestigating the roots of Western music. He studied [[plainsong]], [[Gregorian chant]], and the emergence of [[polyphony]] in the European [[Renaissance music|Renaissance]].

The music that began to emerge after this period was radically different. This period of new compositions included the 1977 works ''[[Fratres]]'', ''[[Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten]]'' and ''[[Tabula Rasa (Pärt)|Tabula Rasa]]''.<ref name="playbill" /> Pärt describes the music of this period as "[[tintinnabuli]]"—like the ringing of bells. ''[[Spiegel im Spiegel]]'' (1978) is a well-known example used in many films. The music is characterised by simple [[harmony|harmonies]], often single unadorned notes, or [[Chord (music)|triads]], which form the basis of Western harmony. These are reminiscent of ringing bells. Tintinnabuli works are rhythmically simple and do not change tempo. In this technique, each syllable of a word is assigned to a pitch and a duration. Once two or three words have been connected, a phrase has been made.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Muzzo |first=Grace Kingsbury |date=2008 |title=Systems, Symbols, & Silence: The Tintinnabuli Technique of Arvo Pärt into the Twenty-First Century |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23557279 |journal=The Choral Journal |volume=49 |issue=6 |pages=22–35 |jstor=23557279 |issn=0009-5028}}</ref> Another characteristic of Pärt's later works is that they are frequently settings for sacred texts, although he mostly chooses [[Latin]] or the [[Church Slavonic language]] used in Orthodox liturgy instead of his native [[Estonian language]]. Large-scale works inspired by religious texts include ''[[Berliner Messe]]'', ''[[Passio (Pärt)|St. John Passion]]'' and ''[[Te Deum (Pärt)|Te Deum]]''; the author of the famous text of ''Litany'' is the 4th-century theologian [[John Chrysostom]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Litany |url=https://www.arvopart.ee/en/arvo-part/work/501/ |publisher=arvopart.ee |access-date=18 July 2020}}</ref> Choral works from this period include [[Magnificat (Pärt)|''Magnificat'']] and ''The Beatitudes''.<ref name="playbill" />