''Für Alina,'' (English: ''For Alina'') is a work for piano, composed by the Estonian composer

Arvo Pärt Arvo Pärt (; born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in p ...

. It is considered an essential work of his

tintinnabuli Tintinnabuli (singular. ''tintinnabulum''; from the Latin ''tintinnabulum'', "a bell") is a compositional style created by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, introduced in his '' Für Alina'' (1976), and used again in ''Spiegel im Spiegel'' (1978). ...

style.

History of composition

''Für Alina'' was first performed in

Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

in 1976, along with six other works, after a long preparatory period in Pärt's life as a composer. This concert was the first to introduce his new signature style of composition, referred to as the tintinnabuli style. The title echoes Beethoven's piece for solo piano ''

Für Elise Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor (WoO59, Biamonti Catalogue, Bia515) for solo piano, commonly known as "Für Elise" (, ), is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most significant popular compositions. It was not published during his lifetime, only being disc ...

''. While the identity of the dedicatee of Beethoven's work is unclear, ''Für Alina'' was dedicated to a family friend's eighteen-year-old daughter. The family had broken up and the daughter went to England with her father. The work, dedicated to the daughter, was actually meant as a work of consolation for the girl's mother, missing her child. Its introspection calls to mind a vivid image of youth, off to explore the world.

Musical structure

The score of ''Für Alina'' is two pages long. It is in the key of

B minor B minor is a minor scale based on B, consisting of the pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative major is D major and its parallel major is B major. The B natural minor scale is: Changes need ...

and is played at a ''piano (p)'' dynamic throughout. Both the left and right hands are written in

treble clef A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical staff. Placing a clef on a staff assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines or four spaces, whi ...

with only occasional bass

octaves In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referr ...

written in

bass clef A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical staff. Placing a clef on a staff assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines or four spaces, whi ...

. Although the score appears simple, it leaves much of the interpretation to the performer. In performance, the piece is commonly repeated several times. The piece does not have a

time signature A time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, and measure signature) is an indication in music notation that specifies how many note values of a particular type fit into each measure ( bar). The time signature indicates th ...

and is marked ''Ruhig, erhaben, in sich hineinhorchend'', which roughly translates as ''peacefully, in an elevated and introspective manner.''Only two

note values In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration (music), duration of a note (music), note, using the texture or shape of the ''notehead'', the presence or absence of a ''stem (music), stem'', and the presence or absence of ''flags ...

appear in the score: whole notes and stemless filled-in noteheads (freer as to their duration). This lack of specified durations creates a free and aleatoric effect. The physicist

Carlo Rovelli Carlo Rovelli (born 3 May 1956) is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer who has worked in Italy, the United States, France, and Canada. He is currently Emeritus Professor at the Centre de Physique Theorique of Marseille in France, a Disti ...

in speaking of his interest in the piece, describes the experience of listening as time appearing to have stopped.P# There are 15 measures of written music, beginning with an octave in the bass register. The next seven measures increase in length regularly: the second measure has one stemless notehead and one whole note, the next measure has two noteheads and a whole note, and so on until a measure that has seven noteheads and a whole note. In other words, the first measure has one note in each hand, the second has two, the third has three, and so on. This pattern is then repeated in retrograde, returning to one notehead and a whole note and ending with two noteheads and a whole note in the last measure. It begins with a low double-octave B, which echoes throughout the whole work until the last section. The

sustain pedal A sustain pedal or sustaining pedal (also called damper pedal, loud pedal, or open pedal) is the most commonly used piano pedals, pedal in a modern piano. It is typically the rightmost of two or three pedals. When pressed, the sustain pedal ...

is depressed throughout the entire piece, with a brief shift prior to the last four measures. The right-hand melody is transposed an octave higher than notated. As there is no time signature, the tempo is free and

aleatoric Aleatoricism (or aleatorism) is a term for musical compositions and other forms of art resulting from "actions made by chance". The term was first used "in the context of electro-acoustics and information theory" to describe "a course of sound ...

. Although both hands play their single notes at the same time, the use of

rubato ; , , ;) is a musical term referring to expressive and rhythmic freedom by a slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor. Rubato is an expressive shaping of music that is a p ...

is encouraged. The entire harmonic structure, with one exception, is constructed so that the left-hand part outlines a B-minor triad directly below the right-hand melody. Thus, when the melody is on a C# or D, the left hand is on a B. When the melody is on an E or F#, the left hand is on a D, and when the melody is on a G, A, or B, the left hand is on an F#. The only break from this harmonic structure appears when the left hand plays a C# below an F# in the right hand, synchronous with the release of the pedal at the end of measure 11.

Recordings

A release endorsed by Pärt himself is the

ECM ECM may refer to the following: Economics and commerce * Engineering change management * Equity capital markets * Error correction model, an econometric model * European Common Market Mathematics * Lenstra's Elliptic curve method for factor ...

New Series album entitled Alina, recorded in July 1995 and released in 1999. It includes two variations of ''Für Alina'' by pianist Alexander Malter. According to the liner notes, the two versions, somewhat like “mood improvisations,” were handpicked by Pärt from a recording that was originally hours long. The two versions most strikingly differ in the use of

and that of the use of the low octave b. Both versions clock slightly under eleven minutes. There are also versions by

Pat Metheny Patrick Bruce Metheny ( ; born August 12, 1954) is an American jazz guitarist and composer. He was the leader of the Pat Metheny Group (1977–2010) and continues to work in various small-combo, duet, and solo settings, as well as other side pr ...

(On his 42 string guitar),

David Arden David Arden is an Australian singer-songwriter and Aboriginal activist. is a Kokatha and a Gunditjmara Songman. He has performed with Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter, Tiddas, Bart Willoughby, Mixed Relations and with members of Shane Howard, Paul ...

, Jeroen van Veen, and Olga Jegunova. subscription required

Use in soundtracks

The piece has been used in several soundtracks, including in the films ''

Foxcatcher ''Foxcatcher'' is a 2014 American biographical thriller- sports film produced and directed by Bennett Miller. Written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, the film stars Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Mark Ruffalo. The film's plot is loose ...

'' (2014), '' Abandon'' (2002), and ''Mostly Martha'' (2001), where it is performed by Alexander Malter.

Sources

* This article draws some facts from the liner notes of the ECM album ''Alina'', an essay ''White Light'' written by Hermann Conen and translated into English by Eileen Walliser-Schwarzbart.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fur Alina Compositions by Arvo Pärt 1976 compositions Compositions for solo piano Music dedicated to family or friends