In this week’s episode, Hang Ki Choi explores how the silences in Arvo Pärt’s "Ludus" play with our sense of musical beginnings and endings.

This episode was produced by Jason Jedlicka along with Team Lead Orit Hilewicz. Special thanks to peer reviewers Robert Sholl and John Heilig.

SMT-Pod’s theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/

[SMT-Pod opening theme music]

Welcome to SMT-Pod! The premiere audio publication of the Society for Music Theory. In this week’s episode, Hang Ki Choi explores how the silences in Arvo Pärt’s "Ludus" play with our sense of musical beginnings and endings.

Silence plays important functions in music, such as intensifying our expectations, highlighting dramatic moments, and operating as a musical symbol. Another crucial function is silence’s ability to delineate the boundary between musical segments.

[Haydn’s Joke Quartet, final movement]

This excerpt is the final movement of Haydn’s “Joke Quartet,” played by the Emerson String Quartet. We hear the ending is interrupted by silences, leading us to ask: when will the piece end? The nickname of this quartet, the Joke, came from playing with our expectation of the movement’s ending.

In this episode, I will investigate the power of silence in signifying musical beginnings and endings — what some people call the teleology of music. I will explore this relationship by analyzing Arvo Pärt’s “Ludus,” from his concerto grosso Tabula Rasa. In this piece, silences of different durations appear in between musical sections, challenging our notion of musical beginnings and endings. My analysis will show that the durational proportions between the silence and the musical section can impact our perception of musical time and the sense of closure.

This episode will contain excerpts with long stretches of silence. To fully engage with my ideas, I encourage you to listen with high-quality earphones. Before I dive into my analysis, let’s understand the significance of silence in Arvo Pärt’s works.

[Transitional music]

For Arvo Pärt, spirituality permeates his work. His wife, Nora Pärt, once expressed in an interview that quote “To really understand his music...you must first understand how this religious tradition (Eastern Orthodoxy) flows through him.” End quote. One of such connections between music and religion is Pärt’s use of silence.

In Russian Orthodoxy, internal silence is a path to connect with the divine. Through repetitive prayers, one can reach the state of hesychasm—a state of inner silence that brings one closer to God. Various scholars of Pärt, such as Peter Bouteneff, Paul Hillier, and Andrew Shenton, have discussed the influence of hesychasm in Pärt’s works.

Silence is also crucial for his creative process. He expressed that quote, “Ideally, a silent pause is something sacred…. If someone approaches silence with love, then this might give birth to music.” End quote. This quotation suggests that for Pärt, even the silence that frames music is important.

Shenton distinguishes two types of silences in Pärt’s oeuvre: silence that precedes music — which I call beginning-silence, and silence that proceeds music — which I call ending-silence. Shenton posits that for Pärt, these silences have various aesthetic effects. For instance, beginning-silences are akin to upbeats that anticipate music, while ending-silences may function as the music’s goal.

In the movement “Ludus,” I hear the piece as an exploration of the distinction between beginning-silence and ending-silence. Under what circumstances would a silence that sounds like a beginning becomes a silence that sounds like an ending? How do beginning-silences and ending-silences impact how we interpret music teleology? To answer these questions, let’s examine the structure of “Ludus.”

[Transitional music]

“Ludus” contains an introduction and eight musical sections that are variants of each other. In between these sections are eight silences, notated with a grand pause on a full-measure rest. These silences form a musical boundary that divides two adjacent musical sections.

To vary the silence’s duration, Pärt sets eight full-measure rests to different time signatures. For instance, the first silence is a full-measure rest in 8/2 time, that is, eight half-notes long, and the second silence is a full-measure rest in 7/2 time, that is, seven half-notes long.

Simultaneously, the grand pause markings above the rests afford performers some freedom to determine the silences’ length. Yet, in most performances I have heard, performers closely adhere to Pärt’s notated duration.

Here is an excerpt from the opening of “Ludus” played by the orchestra, Kremerata Baltica, with violin soloists, Gidon Kremer and Tatjana Grindenko, in their album Silencio from the year 2000. We will hear the introduction played by the violin soloists, followed by the first silence, which is eight beats long, around ten seconds. Then, the first musical section enters, followed by the second silence, which is seven beats long, around nine seconds.

[“Ludus” from 0:00 to 0:45 (1984 ECM recording)]

As the movement unfolds, each subsequent silence becomes a half-note shorter than the previous silence. The first silence is the longest, which is eight half-notes long, while the final silence is the shortest, which is one half-note long. I will call this process of shortening silences the subtractive process.

Simultaneously, each subsequent musical section becomes four or five measures longer. The first section is the shortest, which is eight measures long, while the final section is the longest, which is thirty measures long. I will call this process of lengthening musical sections the additive process. By combining the subtractive and additive processes, the proportion between the silences and musical sections changes as the movement progresses.

If we take the first musical section and its subsequent silence as a unit, this silence is rather long compared to the duration of the musical section. Here is an excerpt of the first musical section, followed by its silence, which is nine seconds long.

[“Ludus” from 0:16 to 0:46]

As a comparison, here is a musical excerpt of the penultimate section, leading into the final silence, which is less than a second long. In this example, the silence is rather short compared to the duration of the musical section.

[“Ludus” from 5:36 to 7:04]

Across this movement, each musical section is surrounded by silences. Andrew Shenton suggests that surrounding silences may function as beginning-silence or ending-silence. In the context of “Ludus,” I hear the longer rests near the movement’s beginning as ending-silences, while the shorter rests near the movement’s ending as beginning-silences. I will show that this is due to the durational proportion between the silence and its preceding musical section.

Let us use the first musical section and its subsequent silence as an example. I hear this silence as an ending-silence due to two reasons. First, it is seven half-notes long, which is rather long for the preceding musical section of eight measures. I define a long silence as a rest in which its duration exceeds a full measure of 6/4, the prevailing meter before all grand pauses in “Ludus.”

To allow for easy comparison between the meter, which is counted as quarter notes, and the rests, which are notated as half-notes, I will clarify that a measure of 6/4 converts to three half-notes in duration. In this example, the silence, which is seven half-notes long, is longer than a measure of 6/4 or three half-notes. Long silences clear the tension of excitement brought forth in the prior musical section. Second, the musical section’s latter half contains gestures that evoke closure, such as thinning texture and decelerating rhythmic activity, which lead into subsequent silence. These gestures inspire me to hear the silence as a confirmation of an ending.

Here is an excerpt of the first musical section’s ending, going into its subsequent silence. Listen to the closing gestures at the end of the musical section and the long duration of the silence.

[“Ludus” from 0:16 to 0:46]

As the movement progresses, silences become shorter, while the musical sections grow longer. Using the penultimate section and the final silence as an example, I hear silences near the end of the movement as beginning-silences. Firstly, at this point in “Ludus,” listeners have already heard the music restart seven times after the full-measure rests. The following rests will likely proceed to another rebeginning. Secondly, this final silence, which is one beat long, is also much shorter compared to the musical section, which is thirty measures long. This final silence sounds like a short upbeat that leads into the next section, rather than a silence that clears the slate of the prior section.

Here is an excerpt of the penultimate section leading into the final silence. Notice the musical section’s long duration, compared to the silence’s short duration.

[“Ludus” from 5:36 to 7:02]

As “Ludus” is heard as a whole, I hear each silence losing its ability to evoke closure, transforming from an ending-silence to a beginning-silence as the piece unfolds.

My analysis suggests that the silence’s duration plays a role in our perception of musical beginnings and endings. Longer silences are ending-silences, while shorter silences are beginning-silences. However, duration is not the only factor. Arvo Pärt once expressed in an interview that quote, “silence is a fertile soil, which, as it were, awaits our creative act, our seed.” End quote. His words remind us that silences are inherently empty. Yet, through a composer’s creative act — that is, the musical context — the silences may evoke temporality, musicality, and even expression.

In the context of Ludus, it is both the silence’s subtractive process and the musical section’s additive process that create this subliminal change in musical temporality.

[Transitional music]

Returning to Haydn’s Joke quartet that opened this episode, how is Haydn’s use of silence different from Pärt’s use of silence? In the Joke quartet, the rests interrupt the music’s harmonic process towards a cadence. Every time the music restarts after a silence, the music inches a step closer to its ending. However, in “Ludus”, silences are interpolated between completed musical sections, which have already achieved local closure before the rest.

Instead of focusing on any incomplete processes in the musical sections, our attention is drawn to the silences themselves. Therefore, Haydn’s use of silence highlights the unfolding harmonic process, while Pärt’s use of silence spotlights the silence’s subtractive process itself.

My reading of “Ludus” encourages us to interrogate the distinction between silences that begin and end musical segments. To notice such a distinction, one needs to meditate on these silences, similar to the state of hesychasm. It is only through introspective examination that we would realize the subtle shift in formal proportions.

Nevertheless, the act of meditating on silence can be vague. Silences are inherently empty; what should the listener meditate on? Pärt once expressed that at the premiere of his choral work Te Deum, he noticed quote “the audience was not used to hearing so many rests, and that made it difficult for them to follow the logic of the work.” End quote.

My analysis suggests that in “Ludus,” mediating on the subliminal changes in duration can provide a rewarding listening experience.

The next time you listen to music, consider how short or long silences impact the expressiveness of the music differently. Second, think about the importance of silences in evoking the beginnings and endings of music. For instance, at the end of a recital, we rely on that unusually long silence to know we should applaud. In social conversation, we often wait for that long silence after someone’s utterance before we know we can interject. Although silence is the absence of music, it contains a wealth of information that impacts the music’s expressivity, temporality, and formal structure.

Thank you very much to my peer reviewers, Robert Sholl and John Heilig, for providing valuable feedback on my draft for this episode. I would also like to thank Robert Komaniecki for being my third reviewer on very short notice. Thank you, Jason Jedlička, the producer of this episode, for tech and audio support. Finally, thank you to the team lead of this project, Orit Hilewicz, and the editor of SMT-Pod, Megan Lyons, for keeping this project on track.

Visit our website smt-pod.org for supplemental materials related to this episode and to learn how to submit an episode proposal. Join in on the conversation by tweeting your questions and comments @SMT_Pod. SMT Pod's theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang. Thanks for listening!