Thesis title: Mathematics and religion is Arvo Pärt's Music
This project addresses the question of religion and mathematics in Arvo Pärt’s music. To investigate these two aspects, chapter 1 discusses the trajectory of the composer, his tintinnabuli style, and the importance of these two areas in his works. The second chapter explicitly discusses the composer's mathematical processes, demonstrating in the tintinnabuli works how he uses mathematics to define musical aspects such as form, chords, and balance. The analysis follows the directions of Jean Larue’s Guidelines of Style Analysis, which aims to identify the particular parameters of musical discourse through small, medium, and large levels of analysis. The third chapter investigates the Sketches made by the composer, the influence of old music, and the use of tintinnabuli in the recent works Trisagion and Lamentate. It demonstrates how Pärt has changed the technique, subverted its essence, and given prominence to other compositional elements.