Arvo Pärt’s Second Symphony and XJI-Invariant Twelve-Tone Rows

Mart Humal

The originality of Arvo Pärt’s music is manifest not only in his works written in the tintinnabuli-style but also in his early twelve-tone compositions, original both in their expression and techniques. His Second Symphony (1966) is based on the row, which, following Milton Babbitt (1960), can be represented by the ordered number couple succession: (0, 0) (1, 3) (2, 1) (3, 2) (4, 4) (5, 7) (6, 5) (7, 6) (8, 8) (9, 11) (10, 9) (11, 10). Its structure is somewhat similar to that of Webern’s Op. 30.In the paper, the possible derivation of this row (as well as the structure of X/JI-invariant rows in general), and its use in each of the symphony’s three movements will be discussed.