Although Part is best known for his 'Tintinnabuli' works - repetitive, minimalist pieces, often with religious themes, up until the late 1970s he was known for a series of 12-tone works, an innovator at the cutting edge of Soviet music.  Most of these works are only now becoming known. He developed the style for which he is best known today slowly, basing it on the ringing of bells - "I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence comforts me."  The most characteristic pieces of this style - and ones that have earned him his fame and success are simple works such as Fratres, Passio, Tabula Rasa.  Although the style has religious overtones, they derive as much from medieval works (which were perforce religious) and he rejects the label 'Holy Minimalism' which links him with composers such as England's John Tavener.  However, Part is an elusive man, shunning interviews and making few personal appearances, he prefers, he says, to let the simplicity of his music speak for him.

He was born in Paide, Estonia on September 11th in 1935, and gained his interest in music from the family piano which was inherited with the family house - although it didn't play properly, especially in the middle register, it was an object of fascination for him and allowed him to begin experimenting. He later began to study piano and took up percussion, playing the snare drum in a military band while doing his military service.

After leaving the army, he enrolled in the Tallinn conservatory, and studied there under Heino Eller - 'the father of Estonian music'. Part also worked part time as a recording engineer with the national radio station, while hating the poor quality of the music it broadcast.  However his own works were well received by the Soviet Musical Authorities - works such as the 1959 Meie aed ('Our garden') cantata for children's choir and orchestra, which received performances in Moscow and at the Zagreb festival in the following year.  

However he now began to experiment with the new compositional styles more popular in the west, using tone rows, which he saw as an almost mathematical exercise, but also as a heuristic to greater expression. The result was Nekrolog - dedicated to the victims of the holocaust - the first Estonian twelve-tone composition - it caused a controversy in official musicological circles, but in the more liberal atmosphere of the early 60's (before Prague) it provoked also a debate on freedom of musical expression, and  he won the first prize in the 1962 USSR Young Composers Competition - but it was awarded for two earlier oratorios:  Meie aed and Maailma samm (the pace of the world).

He graduated from the conservatory in 1963, writing in the same year the piece 'Perpetuum Mobile' (a common title in Baltic music) - again a dodecaphonic composition, consolidating his position at the forefront of the new generation of composers. It's a work that foreshadows his later works, with a basic simplicity that is evolved from the tone-row.

He now began to experiment with aleatory and collage works especially in his 2nd Symphony in 1966, which uses quotations from Tchaikovsky, a dissonance uncharacteristic of his later works, as well as improvisation and a chorus of children's toys squeaking at random.  He developed his collage technique in Credo  (1968) for piano, chorus and Orchestra, which was banned by the authorities for its religious quotations, it's musical quotations include a Bach Prelude, but represents the struggle between tonality and serialism, ending on a C Major chord that declares that the former has won. Critics have interpreted this work as much a personal manifesto as a musical one.

For the next eight years he wrote virtually nothing - entering what the press called his 'years of silence' - leaving his job at State Radio and concentrating on the study of old musical forms, including gregorian chant, the Organum and the works of the early western polyphonalists as well as eastern rite liturgical music. To earn money he wrote film scores, a job he detested as they were subjected to a butchering during post-production.  He realised that some editing was essential in his compositional style also and sought to cut out everything that was not needed.

His third Symphony, written during this period, draws explicitly on medieval music, quoting Gregorian themes, and was said to show of Sibelian and Shostakovian influence. Part said the work encapsulates both joy and despair as well as a search for peace.  Also during this period he wrote Laul armastatule (song for the Beloved)- a symphonic cantata.  He began again his search, striking out from his writing all that seemed extraneous - using the most basic musical elements, and coining the phrase 'Tintinabuli' - comparing the repetition of basic parts of a chord to the ringing of bells. It was first manifest in 'Fur Alina' a piano composition using notes from the extreme upper and lower registers (notes that would have been playable on his old family piano).  He discovered that using simple triads was the best route to the simplicity he sought.

In 1980 he and his wife were given permission to emigrate to Israel, but decided to move to Vienna and became Austrian citizens.  The next year they moved to Berlin.   Part was taken up by Manfred Eichner on his ECM label-  and had an instant hit with Fratres, Tabula Rasa and the Cantata in memoriam Benjamin Britten (Britten was a favourite amongst Soviet audiences) which uses canon techniques that later became a key technique in subsequent works.  The 1977 ECM disc 'Tabula Rasa' featured fellow Estonian Gideon Kremer on violin as well as ECM veteran Keith Jarrett - as well as Schnittke on prepared piano!  Fratres illustrates how a simple tune can be effectively recycled - it's been recorded in many versions, with many orchestrations (see our sound page for a good, cheap example).  Part had created a style that was a fusion of the best of 15th and 20th century music - and ignored everything else between.  Like Tavener he composes with religion at the forefront of his mind - one important consideration is whether the work would be pleasing to God.

For a discography follow the photo link on the composers page.