Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten - Subject Matter

Subject Matter

The piece is a meditation on death. Pärt's biographer, Paul Hillier, suggests that "how we live depends on our relationship with death: how we make music depends on our relationship to silence." It is significant that the piece begins and ends with silence—that the silence is written in the score. What this means is that although the various instruments appear to enter progressively, they are actually "playing" right from the start. This silence creates a frame around the piece and can be seen as having a religious or spiritual significance. It suggests that we come from silence, and return to silence; it reminds us that before we were born and after we die we are silent with respect to this world.

Speaking on his reaction to Britten's death, Pärt admitted,

Why did the date of Benjamin Britten's death – December 4, 1976 – touch such a chord in me? During this time I was obviously at the point where I could recognize the magnitude of such a loss. Inexplicable feelings of guilt, more than that even, arose in me. I had just discovered Britten for myself. Just before his death I began to appreciate the unusual purity of his music – I had had the impression of the same kind of purity in the ballads of Guillaume de Machaut. And besides, for a long time I had wanted to meet Britten personally – and now it would not come to that.