The Train to Brest: Mapping the Borders of Pärt Reception

Abstract

Arvo Pärt and his family left the Soviet Union in January 1980. A young student, Toomas Siitan, accompanied them as far as the border crossing at Brest station. This shared journey was remarkable in its own right, but has also become tightly bound to understandings of Pärt’s music, and of the tintinnabuli style in particular. Motivated by the occasion of Siitan’s sixtieth birthday, this paper does not present new research, but instead treats Pärt’s moment of departure as a springboard for some wider reflections on these patterns of reception. Some major fault lines are briefly reviewed: differences in perception between the so-called East and West, the split identity of tintinnabuli itself, the experiential significance of displacement and trauma. Pärt’s emigration is then linked to two specific issues in slightly more detail: firstly, the status of his pre-tintinnabuli scores, and secondly, the contested perceptions of him as an “Estonian” composer.