Silence is golden. The familiar adage is simple enough, although its sentiment is rarely attained by most of us in this age of relentless noise. Modern life moves at such a breathless pace and our lives are so entirely occupied by action that the idea of silence exists in our minds as a sort of longed-after restfulness, a state of peace just beyond our reach. And yet, when we arrive at the threshold of such quiet, the possibility of emptiness makes us agitated and restless. We find ourselves immediately turning back to the patterns of meaning and activity that we only just left behind, unable to face the openness before us.

For the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, this view of silence is upside down.