Arvo Pärt
Mein Weg
Short instrumentation: perc, vln(6), vla(2), vc(4), cb(2)
Duration: 7'
Dedication: Andreas Peer Kähler und dem Kammerorchester Unter den Linden gewidmet
Instrumentation details:
percussion: tubular bell in E, bass drum
1st violin
2nd violin
3rd violin
4th violin
5th violin
6th violin
1st viola
2nd viola
1st violoncello
2nd violoncello
3rd violoncello
4th violoncello
1st contrabass
2nd contrabass
Pärt - Mein Weg for 14 strings and percussion
Printed/Digital
Translation, reprints and more
Arvo Pärt
Pärt: Mein WegOrchestration: für 14 Streicher und Schlagzeug
Type: Dirigierpartitur (Sonderanfertigung)
Arvo Pärt
Pärt: Mein Weg for 14 strings and percussionOrchestration: for 14 strings and percussion
Type: Studienpartitur
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Work introduction
Mein Weg was written for organ in 1989. In 1994 Arvo Pärt created a version for 14 strings and percussion. The title was inspired by a short poem from Livre des Questions, the magnum opus of the poet Edmond Jabès, who was born in Cairo and emigrated to France in 1957. It reads:
My path has long hours, / jolts and pains. / My path has peaks and sea-troughs, / sand and sky. / Mine or thine.
The image of life’s portentous sea-troughs seems to have found an echo in the work’s compositional fabric with its constant, dynamically differentiated upward and downward motion. We can hear it, for example, in the three distinctly structured forms of motion using the same tonal material, each assigned to a different set of instruments.
Wolfgang Sandner