Arvo Pärt’s Tintinnabuli and the 1970s Soviet Underground

This chapter focuses on early, largely forgotten engagements between Pärt, tintinnabuli, and student culture in the 1970s Soviet Union. It documents the embrace of Pärt’s new style among students and young artists and depicts how an informal network of Soviet youth and young musicians played a crucial role in fostering and promoting his earliest tintinnabuli works between the time of the October 1976 premieres and the popular breakthrough of Tabula Rasa in the fall of 1977. While not denying the singularity of Pärt’s achievement with his new compositional language, the chapter rebuts the widespread image of Pärt as a solitary, isolated figure during the time of his greatest creative breakthrough