Pärt, Arvo

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Pärt, Arvo (1935– ) Estonian composer. His early works were written in a traditional ‘Soviet’ style. In the 1970s, he adopted a minimalist style of gradually shifting chords and note-patterns that he called ‘tintinnabula’. Among his best-known works are Tabula Rasa (1977), Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten (1980), and the St John Passion (1981).

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