Finding his Credo

November, 1968. The most important concert venue in Tallinn – Estonia Concert Hall – is crowded with people. The Estonian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir are at the stage, conducted by Neeme Järvi. And in that deeply anti-religious Soviet cultural room the unexpected latin words “Credo in Jesum Christum“ (“I believe in Jesus Christ“) were heard from the stage, as well as a musical parable on the notes of Prelude in C Major (WTC I) by J. S. Bach. It was the premiere of Arvo Pärt’s Credo. The audience was like thunderstruck and demanded the piece to be repeated immediately.

After that evening Credo was quietly but consistently eliminated from the concert repertoire as well as from the official reports. This significant episode became a landmark in Pärt’s creative life as it fixed his status as a persona non grata. New commissions were out of the question and also his earlier works disappeared from concert and radio programs. “This was my musical death sentence,“ has Pärt later commented. Indeed, Credo led the composer into long creative crisis that went on for eight years and could end only in 1976 when Pärt’s new compositional style – tintinnabuli – was born.