Arvo Pärt: Credo, or Life in times of Genocide

I don’t particularly believe in the idea that a single deity created the universe with a plan, but I do believe in some composers who do, among them J.S. Bach and the great Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.

With his new release “Arvo Pärt: Credo”, performed by Paavo Järvi and the Estonian Festival Orchestra, some fundamental questions resurfaced for me: the way we preside over life and the universe, the meaning of life, the meaning of truth, and more.

For me, Arvo Pärt is a composer whose music is not religious but spiritual, a grounded, earthly version of spirituality. While I am generally more drawn to the existential worldview of the likes of Gustav Mahler, the spiritual, hopeful music of Arvo Pärt also holds a special place in my heart.

When I was composing my Divine Sonata based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, I had no trouble with Inferno and Purgatorio: the world we live in, along with many composers from Mahler to Bartók and John Adams, gave me plenty of inspiration. But when I turned to Paradiso, I found only one composer who could inspire me: Arvo Pärt. His music does not invite you to believe in a deity or even to have faith, but it invites you to believe in harmony—a universal harmony. While for many, including myself, chaos seems to rule the world, mayhem appears to be a fundamental part of life, and the very reason for life might even be the universe trying to speed up its entropy through living beings, for Arvo Pärt, life is harmony. It is the universe trying to understand itself, the effort of the cosmos to find order within chaos through living things.

Arvo Pärt’s music does not shout its verses like Verdi or Mozart. It does not engage in dualism or complex triple-layered harmonies and rhythms like Stravinsky or John Adams. It does not highlight dissonance as Mahler does, nor does it try to overwhelm the world with sheer loudness like Wagner. It does not sound tense and repetitive like city life, or like Philip Glass’s music. No—Arvo Pärt’s music simply is. It exists the same way life exists. It does not shout, just as truth does not shout. It is simply there, waiting to be found, waiting to be noticed.

In Credo, a collection of Pärt’s works is gathered and performed with his worldview in mind, a worldview that, honestly, makes the world feel like a slightly better place. From the famous Fratres to the Bach-influenced Credo, Pärt attempts to make sense of existence through the lens of harmony.

As much as I would love to believe in Pärt’s vision, it no longer resonates with me. Perhaps one or two decades ago it still made sense: a glimmer of hope and peace did not seem so far-fetched. But the reality is that killing some children is legal, the world openly supports some genocides, illegal occupations are considered moral, truth and morality is defined and redefined in each part of the world based on the desires of the world’s rulers. In this world, Arvo Pärt’s vision sounds more like science fiction to me than truth—searching for harmony in absolute chaos, believing in life while life is reduced to a mere number in global affairs. It feels too separated from reality.

But then again, who am I to judge? Is Mahler more connected to the truth than Bach? Are Camus and Sartre closer to reality than Dante or St. Augustine? What is the truth even? Maybe I’m just another cynic composer who has lost all hope. In the end, while we commit all kinds of crimes, we need to seek a moral equivalent to feel good about ourselves—and who better to provide that than poor Arvo Pärt.

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