by Ben Hogwood Picture by Kauppo Kikkas, used from the ECM Records website

Today marks the birthday of one of our most important and best-loved composers, the Estonian Arvo Pärt.

Pärt is best known as a composer with the ability to write music with a deep, spiritual connection, that often has a haunting and meditative quality. Yet a listen to a range of his works confirms that he is – and has been – so much more than that, with an early body of work that is uncompromising and challenging, to be heard alongside the deceptively simple, child-like pieces that make such an easy transition to relaxing playlists.

Pärt is most definitely a ‘playlist composer’, as short pieces such as Fur alina, Fratres and Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten confirm…but the playlist below brings these together with some of the earlier pieces, where a rebellious, pre-punk approach brought startling and compelling results. Try listening without skipping, so that you include the fascinating Symphony no.2 and the Credo. In context, the remarkable qualities of the shorter pieces take on new meaning.

You can listen to the playlist on Tidal below:

https://tidal.com/playlist/a304b83f-388f-4fc3-acd2-b4e7c3134b05

You can also listen to Warner’s excellent compilation The Sound of Arvo Pärt below:

Published post no.2,646 – Wednesday 3 September 2025