On Sunday, 4 May, the ensemble Vox Clamantis will give the world premiere of Arvo Pärt’s Prayer to the Holy Trinity. The performance will take place at St Nicholas’ Church (Niguliste) in Tallinn. Composed in 1976, the piece was originally conceived as a personal musical greeting. Thanks to the archival work of the Arvo Pärt Centre, it is now being presented to the public for the first time.
Written in December 1976, Prayer to the Holy Trinity is one of Pärt’s earliest attempts to compose music for a religious text. At its core is a prayer to the Holy Trinity, repeated twelve times. The melody is derived from the natural stresses and intonation of the words – a compositional approach that would become a defining feature of Pärt’s musical thinking.
During the 1970s, Arvo Pärt experienced an extended creative crisis and produced only a few concert works. This period was marked by intense musical and spiritual searching. Visits to the orthodox convent in Kuremäe, where he encountered exceptionally high-quality liturgical singing, offered the composer both strength and inspiration. Prayer to the Holy Trinity was written as a musical greeting to the then abbess of the convent, Mother Varvara.
Over the course of his long career, Arvo Pärt has written more than eighty such small musical gifts – miniature pieces that were composed to express congratulations, greetings, or gratitude. Though several resemble complete musical works, they are not typically intended for concert performance but rather represent a unique form of musical communication.
The Arvo Pärt Centre began research into the composer’s musical greetings in 2020, and to mark his 90th birthday, will publish the volume Gratefully. Heartfelt. With Love: Musical Greetings from Arvo Pärt later this year. The publication includes new recordings of these miniatures. In collaboration with Jaan-Eik Tulve and Vox Clamantis, one of them – Prayer to the Holy Trinity – will now reach audiences for the first time.
The premiere of Prayer to the Holy Trinity will take place on 4 May at the concert Da pacem. Arvo Pärt 90 at St Nicholas’ Church. The programme will also include Gregorian chant alongside Arvo Pärt’s works Da pacem Domine, Peace upon You, Jerusalem, Magnificat, Silouan’s Song, and Helena Tulve’s composition I Am a River.