Filip Lech (FL): Do you remember your first interaction with Arvo Pärt and his music? His music has been a part of your life, almost from the very beginning. You must have a deep connection with Arvo Pärt himself – not only with his music.
Tõnu Kaljuste (TK): Yes, it all started quite early. I first heard Pärt's music when I was part of a children’s choir, it was Our Garden cantata. And the first time I ever performed his music was at the end of the 1980s – I recorded Te Deum with the Estonian Radio Choir. Arvo Pärt heard it and asked me to record the same piece for ECM Records (Edition of Contemporary Music).
I have a connection with many composers, on different levels. I think all conductors choose to conduct music they like. I just play what I like and Arvo Pärt's music is important to me.
FL: Can you talk about the difference in conducting music written by Arvo Pärt? His music has a distinctive meditative mood to it, there are many links between the music, space and silence.
TK: When Arvo Pärt was a young boy, he rode his bicycle to the market to listen to symphony concerts on the radio playing from the loudspeakers, he thought: 'I want to be a composer, but I want to write a different kind of music, nothing standard.’ That’s because he heard things differently. If you start to listen to composers from around the world, most of them want to bring something new into music. Something distinctive.
What’s perhaps most important for conductors is to respect the composers’ wishes, we just try to give their music some more soul. At first glance, Arvo Pärt’s is very simple, especially some of his latest pieces. However, at the same time, it is very difficult to perform, to concentrate on the right intonation, on the spiritual quality of the music. But it’s hard to pinpoint exactly which part of Pärt’s music is so unique, so different. To do that, you have to have experience in both old and new music, know how to use both singers and instruments. Pärt’s phrasing is the same as the phrasing in all music, just that you have to go the extra mile to find how it works.