The Cambridge Companion to Arvo Part (Cambridge Companions to Music) by Andrew Shenton

Author:Andrew Shenton [Shenton, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012-05-17T03:00:00+00:00

Human rights

It is important to remember that Pärt spent a significant part of his life in a Soviet state and that this has had a profound impact on him. When asked if early in his career he wanted to be famous and whether he thought he might achieve it with the tintinnabuli music, he replied that he was not aware that he developed a musical technique that would be so fertile, nor was this his primary concern. He claimed, “I just wanted to stay alive.”64

He has spoken of oppression, but speaks too of the human spirit: “It would not have been difficult for the Apostles to have lived in the Soviet Union. And there are wonderful people like that there. Heroism can flower in that climate. But it is not absolutely necessary for people to live under such conditions. Perhaps it is more important for something to happen with us, out of our own free will. It makes a difference in the way one thinks if one is hungry or full. Should we all for that reason go hungry? There exists a higher level for us than just being hungry or full. We would not allow ourselves to founder on these two extreme alternatives.”65

He contrasts his own experience with what he perceives as a general disposition of people in the West: “People here are very sleepy; they are satiated with so many things – everything is available to them. People have no worries and become very passive. What activity there is, is of a superficial kind: a bodily activity, a sort of aggression. One must be active and above all not hibernate like a bear, but all this activity is not really pure or full of life – it is not linked to the spirit. Everything here is far more theoretical, unlike the life and death situations that one experiences in totalitarian states. There is no danger here: you can write, say, and do what you want, but in totalitarian states you can only do what is allowed, and important things aren’t allowed.”66

Pärt has always been concerned for human rights and although he acknowledges his place as a musician in the scheme of things he has recently been using his power and influence to highlight specific cases of injustice. In 2006–07 he dedicated all performances of his work to Anna Politkovskaya, a human rights activist who was assassinated in 2006. His Symphony No. 4 is dedicated to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oil oligarch accused of business crimes, and also to “all those who are imprisoned without rights in Russia.” As part of the program for the British premiere of the piece Pärt wrote a forceful and strongly worded message entitled “David and Goliath,” in which he describes what is taking place in the Moscow courtrooms as a “lynching.” He expressed his admiration for Khodorkovsky: “I bow before Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s fortitude and composure, before his intellectual productivity in such unthinkable conditions.” Pärt regrets that he personally does not have “a viable

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