Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten

Scored for string orchestra and bell (only a single chime is used, on the pitch A, the tonal centre of the piece), Cantus exemplifies Pärt's tintinnabuli style, using only the pitches of a single A minor scale.[2] The work is based on a simple idea, a descending A-minor scale, and is in the form of a prolation canon, an old technique which Pärt also uses in the work Festina Lente (Hurry slowly). It is in 6/4 meter and alternates long and short notes.[5]

Pärt has said of "tintinnabulation": "The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises – and everything that is unimportant falls away. Tintinnabulation is like this. Here I am alone with silence. I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me."[6]

Each part except the viola is split into two, with one playing notes from the A minor scale, and the other playing only notes from an A minor chord (i.e., A–C–E). These choices have a definite symbolism for Pärt. The former "always signifies the subjective world, the daily egoistic life of sin and suffering, [the latter] meanwhile, is the objective realm of forgiveness."[7] For Pärt, there is only an apparent dualism here; he believes that "all is one."[8]

The A natural minor scale has some historical connections. Before major and minor scales became prevalent in Western art music, music, especially the early liturgical music that has been so influential on Pärt, used a system of modes. The idea of musical modes was known to the ancient Greeks, and each was said to have a specific character which could strongly affect the mind. The church modes are formed by using the notes of the C major scale (i.e., the white keys on a piano) but starting at different notes in each mode. A scale of A with no black keys is in the Aeolian mode. Since all natural minor scales derive from the white keys on the piano played from A to A, in choosing the A minor scale Pärt is acknowledging his debt to early church music, or at least affirming his affinity with it.

After the three beats of silence that open the score, a tubular bell is struck three times very quietly (pianissimo), with 12 beats between the strikes and gap of 18 beats between the groups of three. This bell tells of the death of Britten—it is the funeral bell. It continues to be struck in groups of three widely spaced intervals for most of the piece, fading out for a time in the last 21 bars, only to reappear at the last. After the bell has struck there is a brief pause for three beats of silence, and then the first violins begin setting the pattern which the rest of the ensemble will follow at slower speeds. Half of the first violins begin playing the descending A minor scale, playing first one note from the very top of their range, then returning to the beginning and playing two notes, and then three and four and so on. The other half of the violins play notes from an A minor chord. These notes start a fourth lower and drop in pitch only when it is overrun by the first. This creates a swirling effect of increasing tension which is relieved by dropping the note. They begin playing very quietly (pianississimo) but gradually over the piece build up until they are playing very loudly (fortississimo).

The second violins play exactly the same but an octave lower and at half the speed, which means they play 6 beats (one bar) of silence to begin, and appear to enter at the beginning of the second bar. Then the violas, which are the only voice not doubled, join in at quarter speed and another octave lower, the cellos at one eighth, and finally the contrabasses as one sixteenth. The basses are then playing each long note for 32 beats, and each short note for 16.

At bar 65 the first violins hit middle C, and when they do they cease playing the A minor scale and simply play C continuously until the end of the piece (i.e., for more than 250 beats). Eleven bars later the second violins hit a low A and play that continuously. Similarly the other voices gradually find the note that they have been seeking and once reached, they play it continuously until the end. The last to lock into place are the contrabasses which alight on a low A in bar 103. At this stage, the whole ensemble is playing an A minor chord very very loudly, and this continues for five bars, then on the second beat of the last bar they suddenly stop. At that moment, the bell is struck very quietly (pianissimo) so that the striking itself is not heard, but only the reverberations as it dies away. As the final bell toll reverberates, with all other instruments silent, the overtones of the bell become prominently audible.