Avro Part: Aliinale

Much of the simplicity immediately apparent in Arvo Pärt’s Aliinale (For Alena) sheds away at the general clutter of music the 21st century listener is already accustomed to receiving. And yet, in the construction of careful tonal parameters for the short work of 14 measures, Pärt seems to be able to unlock new platforms for communication, and even perhaps a jest at the traditions of three-part counterpoint. Moreover, Pärt seems to further assemble a dimension separate from musical time and space; somewhere at their intersections does Aliinale appear to illuminate the poetical imagined space opened by the possibilities of dialogue. This elopes even though the melodic conversation of its separate ‘narratives’ are affixed to its all-too-visceral parameters of regular note increments, tonic components and scale. The idea that thought and concept (of music) is inseparable from the discourse of itself that validates it as such can be examined through the ambiguous intentionality of its title “for Alena” (presumably an association of the composer’s) as a congregating point for discourse and the way which the musical narrative informs (or is informed) by it. Pitch and temporal space are greatly exaggerated between first and second voices, whilst the tonal centre is reiterated subliminally via an opening B sounded in the third voice: a possible ‘voice of reason’ or ‘voice of corporeality’ that sustains about two-thirds through the piece. Though the third voice eventually recedes into the tonal background as a home-key signifier, an important sonic and visual turning point occurs in the 5th beat of measure 11. The sostenuto pedal is released and the home-bound reminder disappears suddenly, leaving the nearly-contrapuntal interlude between the first two voices hanging in mid-air. The held C# - F# perfect fourth scintillates for the first time as if anew, emancipated from its previous measures of condemning harmonic inflexibility. In this moment, the dialogue transforms, their relationship evolves as if bathed under new light as both intertwining organum reach a new state of coexistent independence. Visually, Pärt sketches in a flower, perhaps a tribute to the folly of love taking flight, ascertaining the opened possibilities of new harmonies. The function of the third voice disappears totally for the remaining 4 measures of the piece, although the upper two voices continue to echo it’s presence as a ghost-fundamental, attempting to reach a closure by a progressive diminution of notes in each consecutive measure. However, the dialogue cannot seem to find closure in an absence of conditions that once sustained it. The melodic fragments seem to become simpler, nostalgic, searching for the basic elements that gave rise to its release. Arguably, the event of release reveals itself as jouissance, a bare folly of its constituting elements. In an attempt to find closure, the dominant mathematical progression trumps itself, and the upper voices increase to 3 notes in the last measure, seeking irresolution and the possibility of new unexplored dialogue as a compromise to finality.