Pärt's Tintinnabuli

This week I've been enjoying a new CD from The Tallis Scholars, "Tintinnabuli," music by Arvo Pärt in tribute to his upcoming 80th birthday. The choir performs several a cappella works, including Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen, Magnificat, I Am the True Vine, and Triodion.

I've enjoyed Pärt's music these past several years. Reading the CD notes of this set, I appreciated this explanation of Pärt's style: "Underlying all the music here is a method well known to the Renaissance polyphonists: diatonic melody, based on simple harmony related to one or more triads closely related to the home 'key'. There is no chromaticism, no modulation, the background remains uncluttered and uncomplicated… there are really only two differences between Pärt and Tallis or Palestrina: Pärt tends not to write counterpoint in the details way the Renaissance composers did--his melodies come one at a time, and he uses a system of harmony which derives from the technique he has called Tintinnabuli… a compositional method [originating] from the sounds which bells emit when they are struck---a confusion of fundaments and overtones. This is where Pärt's diatonic language comes from (bells do not deal in chromaticisms), and also where his characteristic close-note harmony comes from--as the sound of a bell retreats from its source the fundamental note blurs…" (http://www.gimell.com/recording-arvo-part---tintinnabuli.aspx)