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Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence
Listeners often speak of a certain mystery in the way that Arvo Pärt evokes spirituality through his music, but no one has taken a sustained, close look at how he achieves this. Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence examines the powerful interplay between Pärt's music and the composer's own deep roots in the Orthodox Christian faith-a relationship that has born much creative fruit and won the hearts of countless listeners across the globe.
From the Introduction:
Conversations about this remarkable music, especially by its more avid listeners, often feature a "my first encounter with Arvo Pärt" story. On our way toward an immersion into that world, I thought I would give you mine so that you might know whose company you are keeping as you read this book.I actually met the man before encountering his music. It was during the early 1990s: Pärt and I found ourselves visiting the same monastery for a week, where a mutual friend made sure to introduce us. Pärt was, after all, a famous composer, and I had earned degrees in both music and theology. But as it was, I had never knowingly heard a note of his music. I had not actually even heard of him. We spent hours walking together and talking on themes of mutual interest, among them the phenomenon of "Holy Foolishness" on which I had just written a thesis. At one point I asked him about his music, what it was like, what kinds of instrumentation he employed. He chatted about it with no pretense or fanfare: "Sometimes I write for choir, sometimes for orchestra. Or the organ ..." I had the sense that if he was famous-and it turned out that by this time, he really was-he was probably enjoying the opportunity to talk to someone who was neither an awestruck admirer nor a jaded music critic. I enjoyed his company immensely, but what did his music sound like? What were the chances that I would even like it?
From the Introduction:
Conversations about this remarkable music, especially by its more avid listeners, often feature a "my first encounter with Arvo Pärt" story. On our way toward an immersion into that world, I thought I would give you mine so that you might know whose company you are keeping as you read this book.I actually met the man before encountering his music. It was during the early 1990s: Pärt and I found ourselves visiting the same monastery for a week, where a mutual friend made sure to introduce us. Pärt was, after all, a famous composer, and I had earned degrees in both music and theology. But as it was, I had never knowingly heard a note of his music. I had not actually even heard of him. We spent hours walking together and talking on themes of mutual interest, among them the phenomenon of "Holy Foolishness" on which I had just written a thesis. At one point I asked him about his music, what it was like, what kinds of instrumentation he employed. He chatted about it with no pretense or fanfare: "Sometimes I write for choir, sometimes for orchestra. Or the organ ..." I had the sense that if he was famous-and it turned out that by this time, he really was-he was probably enjoying the opportunity to talk to someone who was neither an awestruck admirer nor a jaded music critic. I enjoyed his company immensely, but what did his music sound like? What were the chances that I would even like it?
231 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2015
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December 11, 2023
December 11, 2023 Update I just added the English language audiobook edition narrated by the author and as recently published on Audible December 4, 2023 to Goodreads.
October 16, 2021 Update Mentioned as an aside by Toomas Siitan while introducing Peter Bouteneff's talk at today's Arvo Pärt: Texts and Contexts conference in Estonia, the book Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence has been translated into Estonian and will be published October 23, 2021. The Estonian title will be Arvo Pärt: Vaikusest sündinud, which literally translates as "Arvo Pärt: Born out of Silence".
A Pure Bright Sadness born out of the Darkness
Review of the St Vladimir's Seminary Press paperback edition (2015)
If you are a fan of the music of Arvo Pärt and perhaps of Estonian composers and their music in general you’ll likely be at least somewhat curious about this book which is the first study that provides some background understanding as to how Pärt’s Eastern Orthodox faith has provided both inspiration and source material for his compositions. Author Peter C. Bouteneff teaches at the St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in Yonkers, New York where he is also one of the driving forces behind the Arvo Pärt Project (www.arvopartproject.com) which is “a collaboration born out of the deep connection between the composer and the spiritual tradition that grounds his music.”
Paul Hillier’s "Arvo Pärt", from 1997, is still the best overall biographical and early career overview, although it of course is missing information on the last 20 or so years of compositions. That, and "The Cambridge Companion to Arvo Pärt" and at least one of the 6 different language editions of Enzo Restagno’s “Arvo Pärt allo specchio: conversazioni, saggi e testimonianze" (each translation’s edition has slightly different expanded content, although the Restagno interview with Nora and Arvo Pärt is common to all of them) are probably the best starter books for those who want a basic introduction to Arvo Pärt and his music.
"Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence" goes beyond those others though in providing a view into the Orthodox faith that has underpinned Pärt’s life since the early 1970’s and which writings have provided the text-source material for a great amount of his work, particularly in the years since the Paul Hillier study. This basis is often not even apparent esp. in the case of instrumental works which have a foundation text behind them that is never sung or spoken. The compositions "Silouan’s Song", “Lamentate", "Für Lennart in Memoriam" and "Symphony No. 4" are some of the major examples of this. An excellent and perfect companion volume to this present study is therefore the also recently published “In Principio: The Word in Arvo Pärt's Music”.
This present book’s material is presented in a very approachable manner which doesn’t necessarily require that the reader be previously well-read in the area. You could read it having no previous knowledge of Arvo Pärt or of Orthodox Christianity, although you would likely have do some dictionary or internet searches to bone up in a few cases (e.g. as my own background is Estonian-language Lutheran, I had no idea what RSV and NRSV* meant when I saw them here & Greek-based terms such as “hesychia" looked like Greek to me ;) Bouteneff’s previous and ongoing work as both a music scholar and as a theology teacher give him the prefect grounding to introducing both Arvo Pärt and Eastern Orthodox Christianity to us. The structure of the book is such that after an introduction to Pärt and his work there are excursions into the topics of “Silence" (i.e. this is the "hesychia" or "stillness/silence" which is a tradition of Eastern Orthodox prayer) and "Bright Sadness”, particularly in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and then a concluding section to tie them into Pärt’s compositions.
Inserts and Appendices include 8 pages of colour photographs, a chronological list of Pärt’s compositions, suggested readings in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, a complete English language translation of St. Silouan's “Adam’s Lament” (Pärt’s composition only scores about 1/5th of it), both the conferral and Arvo Pärt’s acceptance speech for his 2014 Honorary Doctorate at St. Vladimir’s Seminary and a complete bibliography.
Whether intentionally painted so or not, the cover art of Satsuki Shibuya’s “Rebirth” (www.satsukishibuya.com) acts as a wonderful physical and spiritual symbolic portrait of Arvo Pärt (slightly balding and bearded and/or a pure white egg being born out of darkness) which perfectly captures the spirit of this book as well. To sum up, this book is highly recommended for those interested in the music of Arvo Pärt.
*RSV is the Revised Standard Version and NRSV is the New Revised Standard Version of English language translations of the Holy Bible.
October 16, 2021 Update Mentioned as an aside by Toomas Siitan while introducing Peter Bouteneff's talk at today's Arvo Pärt: Texts and Contexts conference in Estonia, the book Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence has been translated into Estonian and will be published October 23, 2021. The Estonian title will be Arvo Pärt: Vaikusest sündinud, which literally translates as "Arvo Pärt: Born out of Silence".
A Pure Bright Sadness born out of the Darkness
Review of the St Vladimir's Seminary Press paperback edition (2015)
If you are a fan of the music of Arvo Pärt and perhaps of Estonian composers and their music in general you’ll likely be at least somewhat curious about this book which is the first study that provides some background understanding as to how Pärt’s Eastern Orthodox faith has provided both inspiration and source material for his compositions. Author Peter C. Bouteneff teaches at the St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in Yonkers, New York where he is also one of the driving forces behind the Arvo Pärt Project (www.arvopartproject.com) which is “a collaboration born out of the deep connection between the composer and the spiritual tradition that grounds his music.”
Paul Hillier’s "Arvo Pärt", from 1997, is still the best overall biographical and early career overview, although it of course is missing information on the last 20 or so years of compositions. That, and "The Cambridge Companion to Arvo Pärt" and at least one of the 6 different language editions of Enzo Restagno’s “Arvo Pärt allo specchio: conversazioni, saggi e testimonianze" (each translation’s edition has slightly different expanded content, although the Restagno interview with Nora and Arvo Pärt is common to all of them) are probably the best starter books for those who want a basic introduction to Arvo Pärt and his music.
"Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence" goes beyond those others though in providing a view into the Orthodox faith that has underpinned Pärt’s life since the early 1970’s and which writings have provided the text-source material for a great amount of his work, particularly in the years since the Paul Hillier study. This basis is often not even apparent esp. in the case of instrumental works which have a foundation text behind them that is never sung or spoken. The compositions "Silouan’s Song", “Lamentate", "Für Lennart in Memoriam" and "Symphony No. 4" are some of the major examples of this. An excellent and perfect companion volume to this present study is therefore the also recently published “In Principio: The Word in Arvo Pärt's Music”.
This present book’s material is presented in a very approachable manner which doesn’t necessarily require that the reader be previously well-read in the area. You could read it having no previous knowledge of Arvo Pärt or of Orthodox Christianity, although you would likely have do some dictionary or internet searches to bone up in a few cases (e.g. as my own background is Estonian-language Lutheran, I had no idea what RSV and NRSV* meant when I saw them here & Greek-based terms such as “hesychia" looked like Greek to me ;) Bouteneff’s previous and ongoing work as both a music scholar and as a theology teacher give him the prefect grounding to introducing both Arvo Pärt and Eastern Orthodox Christianity to us. The structure of the book is such that after an introduction to Pärt and his work there are excursions into the topics of “Silence" (i.e. this is the "hesychia" or "stillness/silence" which is a tradition of Eastern Orthodox prayer) and "Bright Sadness”, particularly in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and then a concluding section to tie them into Pärt’s compositions.
Inserts and Appendices include 8 pages of colour photographs, a chronological list of Pärt’s compositions, suggested readings in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, a complete English language translation of St. Silouan's “Adam’s Lament” (Pärt’s composition only scores about 1/5th of it), both the conferral and Arvo Pärt’s acceptance speech for his 2014 Honorary Doctorate at St. Vladimir’s Seminary and a complete bibliography.
Whether intentionally painted so or not, the cover art of Satsuki Shibuya’s “Rebirth” (www.satsukishibuya.com) acts as a wonderful physical and spiritual symbolic portrait of Arvo Pärt (slightly balding and bearded and/or a pure white egg being born out of darkness) which perfectly captures the spirit of this book as well. To sum up, this book is highly recommended for those interested in the music of Arvo Pärt.
*RSV is the Revised Standard Version and NRSV is the New Revised Standard Version of English language translations of the Holy Bible.
April 15, 2018
This is an odd book. Peter C. Bouteneff is a lecturer in theology at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in the United States. He happened to meet Arvo Pärt years ago when the two stayed at the same monastery. Later Bouteneff became a fan of Pärt’s music and arranged a series of concerts of Pärt works in New York, an occasion on which Pärt was also awarded an honorary doctorate from SVS. In this book, Bouteneff seeks to link Arvo Pärt’s music more closely to the teachings of the Orthodox Church. Pärt is a devout Orthodox believer, and nearly all of his music sets specifically Christian texts, but media coverage generally depicts the music as only vaguely “spiritual” and doesn’t delve too deeply into any particularly religious affiliation.
In fact, this book falls neatly into two halves. In the first, Bouteneff does write specifically about Pärt, giving a good overview of his aesthetic and why it resonates with listeners of all stripes. This is fairly enjoyable and contains some trivia on Pärt’s life and work that fans might appreciate.
The second half of the book is more problematic. Bouteneff delves deeply into Orthodox teachings on the value of silence and prayer. However, readers will be disappointed to find that the link to Pärt’s music specifically is lost; page after page goes by without Pärt being mentioned at all. Furthermore, while Pärt is an Orthodox believer, he has repeatedly claimed that his musical style draws more on the West than the East. Therefore, while Pärt would certainly admire these teachings of the Church Fathers, they fact that they congrue so well with his music feels like something of a coincidence.
Also, the book suffers from the same rather schizophrenic identity that many feels afflicts St. Vladimir’s in general, of being a mainstream academic institution at the same time that it really exists to train clergy in Church dogma that one shouldn’t be shy about at all. Bouteneff starts off with a very academic introduction that tries hard to evince a sort of neutrality, but it is clear that the Orthodox teachings that make up the second half of the book really do matter to him. The reader therefore gets the impression that the introduction is just pure academic boilerplate, not sincere or willingly written at all, and it is a shame that SVS faculty feel forced to include this kind of stuff in their publications.
In fact, this book falls neatly into two halves. In the first, Bouteneff does write specifically about Pärt, giving a good overview of his aesthetic and why it resonates with listeners of all stripes. This is fairly enjoyable and contains some trivia on Pärt’s life and work that fans might appreciate.
The second half of the book is more problematic. Bouteneff delves deeply into Orthodox teachings on the value of silence and prayer. However, readers will be disappointed to find that the link to Pärt’s music specifically is lost; page after page goes by without Pärt being mentioned at all. Furthermore, while Pärt is an Orthodox believer, he has repeatedly claimed that his musical style draws more on the West than the East. Therefore, while Pärt would certainly admire these teachings of the Church Fathers, they fact that they congrue so well with his music feels like something of a coincidence.
Also, the book suffers from the same rather schizophrenic identity that many feels afflicts St. Vladimir’s in general, of being a mainstream academic institution at the same time that it really exists to train clergy in Church dogma that one shouldn’t be shy about at all. Bouteneff starts off with a very academic introduction that tries hard to evince a sort of neutrality, but it is clear that the Orthodox teachings that make up the second half of the book really do matter to him. The reader therefore gets the impression that the introduction is just pure academic boilerplate, not sincere or willingly written at all, and it is a shame that SVS faculty feel forced to include this kind of stuff in their publications.
October 8, 2025
3.5
Трохи більш теології ніж я очікував, але загалом цікаво.
Трохи більш теології ніж я очікував, але загалом цікаво.
April 29, 2022
Stick with it till the third chapter, then it will make sense.
December 4, 2025
Phenomenal discourse on silence as involved in co-Creation and the silencing of self-will.
January 3, 2018
Deep dive into the religious system that Pärt has translated into his music. Remarkably good read even for non-believers that makes you rethink all the thin and often times superficial layers of very well commercialised spirituality and mindfulness.
It also makes you relisten all the monumental pieces after reading their theoretical analysis, and google search for similar books.
It also makes you relisten all the monumental pieces after reading their theoretical analysis, and google search for similar books.
August 8, 2022
Theological, not analytical or musicological. I will admit, the author makes this allowance at the beginning. So, I appreciate that.
Too much theological discussion with not enough comparison or ties to analytical or musicological statements about Part’s work. Extremely redundant. The author makes a good point then says it 16 different ways. Unnecessary. Seemingly just to fill pages. The biblical examples may be pertinent but there are too many for the same argument. Many are longer than necessary. The relevance to Part is at best tangential.
The only discussion on the tintinnabuli technique is based, like every other article and book, on Paul Hillier’s research. Therefor, for the musicological/theoretical researcher or student, this book is not a worthy source on the music of Arvo Part.
Too much theological discussion with not enough comparison or ties to analytical or musicological statements about Part’s work. Extremely redundant. The author makes a good point then says it 16 different ways. Unnecessary. Seemingly just to fill pages. The biblical examples may be pertinent but there are too many for the same argument. Many are longer than necessary. The relevance to Part is at best tangential.
The only discussion on the tintinnabuli technique is based, like every other article and book, on Paul Hillier’s research. Therefor, for the musicological/theoretical researcher or student, this book is not a worthy source on the music of Arvo Part.
March 15, 2023
6/10
I expected this book to be an examination of Pärt's music through the lens of his faith (or vice versa). And while the author clearly states the obvious--that Pärt's music is deeply connected to and inseparable from his faith--he doesn't spend very much time articulating specific ways or examples of that connection (the few times that he does are beautiful, deeply compelling, and powerful). Rather,there are extended passages of purely theological content, without so much as mention of Pärt's name, followed by more biographical passages.
There's something almost humorous about a book that is attempting (sometimes very successfully) to show the inseparability of an artist's theology and the art he creates, and the degree to which those topics were separated in the text of the book itself.
A worthwhile read, with worthwhile thoughts, but not what I expected.
I expected this book to be an examination of Pärt's music through the lens of his faith (or vice versa). And while the author clearly states the obvious--that Pärt's music is deeply connected to and inseparable from his faith--he doesn't spend very much time articulating specific ways or examples of that connection (the few times that he does are beautiful, deeply compelling, and powerful). Rather,there are extended passages of purely theological content, without so much as mention of Pärt's name, followed by more biographical passages.
There's something almost humorous about a book that is attempting (sometimes very successfully) to show the inseparability of an artist's theology and the art he creates, and the degree to which those topics were separated in the text of the book itself.
A worthwhile read, with worthwhile thoughts, but not what I expected.
March 21, 2022
Excellent overview of one of the greatest living composers. Pärt composes beauty in a world of ever increasing horror.
March 15, 2016
I have been listening to the music of Arvo Pärt for nearly two decades now. I know how it has impacted me as a musician. I know how it has impacted my faith. But prior to launching into this book I knew little of the man: Arvo Pärt. Peter Bouteneff, in this book, gives a cursory view of his life, his philosophy of music, his faith, his musicality, and briefly he touches on the theology behind the music. Thankfully Bouteneff offers numerous points to dig further into the various facets of Pärt's life and music. And I now look forward to further research. I highly recommend "Out of Silence" as a point of entry into the world of the great composer, one of my personal favorites, Arvo Pärt.
May 5, 2020
Confession: I did not read the whole book. But I wanted to note it here in case I want to come back to it. (Capital University was its source library-wise for me.)
"This is a book about Arvo Part's music, explored in terms of his faith and life." So begins the introduction, by the author, "a professor of theology and a conservatory-trained musician" (back cover), who has known his subject for over twenty years. Biography, pictures, musical analysis, all may be of interest to those struck by the mystery of Part's music.
"This is a book about Arvo Part's music, explored in terms of his faith and life." So begins the introduction, by the author, "a professor of theology and a conservatory-trained musician" (back cover), who has known his subject for over twenty years. Biography, pictures, musical analysis, all may be of interest to those struck by the mystery of Part's music.
December 7, 2023
I discovered Arvo Pärt’s music a few decades ago, long before I became officially Orthodox. I had never heard anything like that before. There was some depth and mystery there that attracted me deeply.
After becoming Orthodox, I realized Pärt’s faith was strongly present in his music. But only with this book by Bouteneff, Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence, was I able to appreciate to what extent.
My full review, with lots of passages, is here:
https://myrtleskete.com/2023/03/29/bo...
After becoming Orthodox, I realized Pärt’s faith was strongly present in his music. But only with this book by Bouteneff, Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence, was I able to appreciate to what extent.
My full review, with lots of passages, is here:
https://myrtleskete.com/2023/03/29/bo...
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews