Arvo Pärt

Credo für Chor SATB, Klavier und Orchester

Arvo Pärt says of this work: In the 1960s I became so fascinated by that central idea of Christianity 'Love your enemies' that it gave birth to my composition Credo. The work comprises two musically opposing, colliding worlds: one serial and aleatoric, the other an arrangement of a prelude by Bach. What I wanted to show through the work's unfolding - inexorable like a chain reaction - is how the postulate 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth', harmless as it may seem in its initial stage, only gradually displays the full destructive dimensions of its true face; an escalation of power that, like an avalanche, eventually comes up against its own limits. What at first we perceive as human justice finally turns into its opposite. 'Do not resist one who is evil' … 'Love your enemies' - there is nothing more radical and enigmatic than these words of Christ, which nearly burst the bounds of our reason. And yet… (Michael Church)