Spiegel im Spiegel for Cello and Piano (Arvo Pärt)

Happy 90th Birthday to Arvo Part.

I just realised that today marks the 90th birthday of Arvo Part who was born  in Paide, Estonia on September 11th 1935. He is possibly the most popular living composer of classical music in the world, so I thought I would dust off this little piece I wrote a few years ago.

.................The small Baltic republic of Estonia only has a population of 1,329,460 people, but they can be justly proud, because one of that small number is arguably the greatest living composer in the world today. His name is Arvo Part who was born in Paide, a small city in Estonia in 1935. I had not heard of him until a few weeks ago. My awareness of his music came about through my growing interest in minimalist or ambient music. I see my discovery of Arvo Part’s music as a progression from other work I like such as Terry Riley, Virginia Astley, Tony Scott, the piano improvisations of Keith Jarrett and other such music. I like to think that I have an eclectic taste in music and do not think there is any genre of music that I would refuse to listen to. However, there are times when I do not want to listen to songs, I just want to listen attentively without having to think. Minimalist type music is perfect for a meditative state of mindfulness.

Reading about music online, the name of Arvo Part kept being recommended as an example of minimalist music. I decided to order a CD but had no idea what the best recordings of his compositions were, so settled on a double CD called The Very Best Of Arvo Part. It is a 2010 compilation of nearly 160 minutes of music by various artists, orchestras, and choirs. I thought I knew nothing about this music, but some of it sounded quite familiar. That is probably because film makers have often used his music in soundtracks. I do not really feel equipped to discuss this music in depth because I do not know enough about classical music and the techniques involved in composition. When I hear about terms like counterpoint, polyphony, tonality, or dissonance, I must look them up to see what they mean, and even then, I don’t understand it. I just like the music.

I gleaned from the sleeve notes that Arvo Part developed a radical new approach to music that he called Tintinnabuli meaning little bells. Many of his early pieces in this new style, including Tabula rasa (1977) and Spiegel im Spiegel (1978), have become some of his best-known compositions. Both of those compositions are included in this collection. Tabula Rasa is 28 minutes long and is exquisite. In Part’s music you can savour every note, harmony, and silence between the notes. I think all great musicians understand the importance of leaving spaces in their work.

Arvo Part suffered under Soviet rule. The censors banned his work from being performed. He was branded as ‘a traitor to the fatherland’. His reputation grew in the west however and the authorities finally granted him an exit visa in 1980 and he resided in Berlin where he stayed until 2010 before returning permanently to Estonia. Along with John Williams he is now the most performed composer in the world. There may be better recordings of his work, but as an introduction to Arvo Part I am very happy with this collection. It features music by such people as The Choir Of Kings College Cambridge, The Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and many others. I was particularly taken by the violin playing of Tamsin Little and the piano of Martin Roscoe. This is very spiritual music. Arvo Part is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, but you do not have to be religious to be moved by this music. By spiritual I mean in the sense of transcendence. To quote Van Morrison you could say this music really is ‘hymns to the silence’. I am extremely pleased to have discovered this wonderful music.

Seeing Yusef / Cat Stevens, at Bristol Beacon 8/9/2025.

I have been a Cat Stevens fan since the 1960s, but it was in the early to mid-1970s that he became one of my favourite singer-songwriters with such albums as Mona Bone Jakon, Tea For The Tiller Man, Teaser & The Firecat and Catch Bull At Four. I have always liked music with a spiritual content and Cat’s songs certainly had that in abundance. My interest waned after that, and Cat Stevens withdrew from making music and changed his name to Yusef (which translates as Joseph). In recent years though he has re-emerged from the moon shadows and started performing again under the name Yusef / Cat Stevens. I finally got to see him play live when he gave a magnificent performance at Glastonbury two years ago in the Sunday afternoon legends spot. This year it was announced that he had written his autobiography On The Road To Find Out and was performing a tour to promote the book. One of the dates was at Bristol Beacon, so I snapped up two tickets in the pre-sale for myself and a friend. On the night my friend sadly couldn’t go due to illness, so I gave her ticket to another friend who lives in Bristol. Before the show began I was pleased to meet up with three other mates who I know from Van Morrison gigs. When we took our seats, I was slightly annoyed to find that the start time had been put back by half an hour, from 7.30 to 8.00 because I was hoping to catch the 10.25 train home. More about that later.

I must say that the stage set and lighting for this performance was magnificent and theatrical. There was a small table on the stage with a teapot and cup just like the cover of Tea For The Tillerman. The entire show had a changing backdrop of Cat’s own artwork, old photographs, rare videos, and scenes from his life. He was accompanied by just two other musicians on guitars, keyboards and various other instruments. The show began with Cat walking on from stage left, playing his acoustic guitar and singing Miles From Nowhere. Then he sat by the little table and began to sing songs and recount his life story which began above his Greek Cypriot parents Moulin Rouge restaurant in London’s West End. He attended a nearby catholic primary school which was run by nuns. This led to a little snippet of Days Of The Old School Yard. 

He originally wanted to be an artist or cartoonist. You can see he was talented in art from the album covers which he created. Then he heard The Beatles and Stones and that was it. He persuaded his father to buy him a guitar. Mike Hurst of The Springfields (Dusty Springfield’s group) heard his songs and got him a deal with Deram records and Cat had early hits with I Love My Dog and Matthew & Son which was only kept off the top of the charts by The Monkees. He was in a dark place emotionally however which led to such songs as Trouble and A Bad Night. Disaster struck and Cat was in hospital for 18 months with TB. When he recovered eventually, everything including his music had changed. He was writing a musical based on the Russian revolution and one of the songs from it was Father & Son. Chris Blackwell of Island records offered him a contract which led to his most successful period as a singer-songwriter, but Cat was on a spiritual quest. He used to frequent a bookshop called The Bodhi Tree where he discovered a book called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones which influenced the Catch Bull At Four album which went straight to number one on the Billboard charts.

A turning point in his life was when Cat almost drowned while swimming in the sea off California. He made a deal with god that if his life was saved he would work for him. I think the last song before the interval was one of my favourites The Wind. After the interval Cat sang another wonderful song Lilywhite and then recounted how his brother gave him a copy of The Koran after visiting Jerusalem. This led to him eventually visiting the mosque in Regents Park, becoming a Muslim, being introduced to the Hard Headed Woman he was seeking, getting married and having children. He lost interest in music and dedicated his life to creating schools and charity fundraising. It was the horrors of the Bosnian war that brought him back to playing music and writing songs, also his son encouraging him to pick up the guitar again. I must say that I didn’t know anything about his music of recent years, but one song The Little Ones about the children of Bosnia was particularly moving. 

However, I was getting fearful of missing my train and had to leave. I found out this morning that I missed hearing Peace Train, If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out, and the encore which was Wild World. I grabbed a taxi outside and headed for Temple Meads Station where I found I had just missed my train. I realised that I could have seen the end of the show after all. I caught the next train at 11.06. At Bath I had to get off the train due to engineering works and catch a replacement bus service. After I finally got off the bus I still had a twenty-minute walk home. I got through my front door at 1.00am exhausted, but still happy that I had witnessed a brilliant concert by the legend that is Yusef / Cat Stevens and will certainly be buying his book when it is published on September 18^th. 

I might have made some mistakes and this list might be in the wrong order, some of these songs were just snippets, but I think the concert setlist was Miles From Nowhere, Days Of The Old School yard, I Love My Dog, The First Cut Is the Deepest, Trouble, Father and Son, Sitting, Joseph, The Wind, Lilywhite, On the Road to Find Out, Hard Headed Woman, Bitterblue, Moonshadow, Cat In The Dog Trap, Oh Very Young, The Little Ones, How Good It Feels, Peace Train, If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out, Wild World.

Yusuf / Cat Stevens - Wild World (Glastonbury 2023)

My Tallest Sunflower Finally Opens.