Love and loss has captured the interest of composers for centuries. Through manipulating specific musical elements, composers write a piece that captures the emotions surrounding love and loss. Prior to Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt (1935 – 1980), composers augmented the use of musical elements to create a feeling of love or loss. Pärt, who was a minimalist composer, did not believe that bigger was better, as commonly thought. He believed that, “...it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me.” This minimalistic idea that simple is better than complex is evident throughout Pärt’s career and is prominent in the pieces Cantus in Memoriam: Benjamin Britten (1977); written in response of the death of English composer Benjamin Britten (1976), and Spiegel im Spiegel (1978), literally meaning "mirror in the mirror", referring to the infinity of images produced by parallel plane mirrors. Pärt identified the musical elements and ideas that would influence the audience to feel the emotion of loss. This essay will analyse the musical elements in both pieces and evaluate how they relate to the context and genre of loss.
Instrumentation played an important role in Pärt’s minimalistic compositions. In Spiegel im Spiegel only two instruments are used, the piano and a solo violin. The purpose of the piano is to take part in Pärt’s self-made tintinnabular style, which will be discussed in harmony section of the essay. The violin is very effective in conveying moods surrounding loss because of the smooth, un-detached timbre it creates when played in a vibrato style. Cantus also uses a small variety of instruments. The score comprises of a string orchestra (1st and 2nd violins, viola, cello and double bass) and tubular bells. Similar to Spiegel these instruments are important because they assist in Pärt’s tintinnabular style. As well as assisting in Pärt’s style, strings are very effective in creating...