Arvo Pärt, Paide (Estland), *  11 september 1935

• Arvo Pärt, Tabula Rasa (1977)
• Tabula Rasa, I. Ludus – Con moto

• Tabula Rasa, II. Silentium – Senza moto

• “One searches in the outer world as well as in other’s reflections of oneself – with all its insecurities, joys, convictions, evaluations. The world observes these oscillations of our feelings with profound indifference. Here and there a person hurries by, producing a sound that resembles one’s own. But it’s already gone, and one is again embraced by silence. Our pain and insomnia as part of a whole. Our despair: a drop in the ocean. Death – the final bill, in which the challenge turns into a phantom. Ambitions, hopes, enchantment. All this finds its peace there in the world beyond.

. . . Words irritate. Gestures mislead. Emotions dissolve. Only sound speak a language that might be understood. If one opens the heart, would there be someone receptive enough? But who is listening? Who is able to feel it? Often I do ask myself, where does a heartbeat identical to mine exist? And the attempt of an answer is: out there, on the other end of my own sound.”

Gidon Kremer, Obertöne (1997)