Between Two Sounds tells the story behind the music of the world-famous Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.

Arvo Pärt’s (b. 1935) music became increasingly popular throughout the world following his forced emigration from then-Soviet Estonia in 1980. International performances and recordings swelled to the point where today, in 2019, there are over 500 professional recordings featuring his works. The online concert tracker Bachtrack has listed him as the world’s most-performed living classical composer for the past eight years running (2011–2018). Pärt’s music, and sometimes that of his imitators, has become ubiquitous in film and television.

In spite of this success, Pärt has remained incredibly private and modest, granting almost no interviews. Until now, there have been no biographies published on any part of Pärt’s life. Information about his personal and career developments prior to 1980 has been limited to snippets from print interviews and Estonian film documentaries. The graphic novel Between Two Sounds provides unprecedented insight into this uncovered area. It is worth mentioning that Pärt himself was closely involved in drafting the story and staying true to the facts.

Between Two Sounds starts with Pärt’s birth, moves through his youth and the kindling of his love of music, covers his musical education and early years as a composer, and gradually arrives at his retreat from the world as he searched for his own musical voice. Pärt’s first creative period can be called avant-garde modernism. He was perceived as an “angry young man” in the Soviet music scene of the 1960s. The second part of his career emerged in the mid-1970s, when his own spiritual technique evolved: tintinnabuli (little bell-like). The shift between these two fundamentally different musical languages happened slowly but dramatically. Pärt ceased writing music for the public for about a decade, fully immersing in his search for a new, individual compositional technique. Between Two Sounds shows what led him to this change and how he succeeded.

The graphic novel also touches upon a universal artistic problem: an inability to fully express oneself through skills or a desired technique. Another sub-theme is Estonians’ struggle during the Soviet occupation: the severe restrictions on the freedom of speech, garnished with attempts to contain and control ideas and beliefs; restrictions that sometimes played out in utterly absurd situations. The repression of Pärt’s career under the Soviet regime eventually culminated in his forced emigration to the West.

In October 2018, the first Estonian-language hardcover print of Between Two Sounds was published by the Arvo Pärt Centre in conjunction with Centre’s grand opening. As of February 2019, it has been nominated for six different literary and cultural prizes. It received the annual Golden Book Award from the Estonian National Library and was selected as one of Estonia’s Best Designed Books of 2018. The work has naturally received widespread media attention, including lengthy positive reviews in Estonia’s largest newspapers.