Arvo Pärt has gained renown in recent years with meditative compositions built on pulsing, nearly static, chords. In his youth, however, ärt, like many twentieth-century composers, experimented with various styles. The Collage on the theme B-A-C-H, for oboe, string orchestra, harpsichord and piano, comes from Pärt's transition period and uses Baroque quotations much as Alfred Schnittke did in his famous "polystylist" works. Pärt, of course, did not remain a polystylist, but the Collage shows that he was comfortable with polystylism's methods. Ever since Johann Sebastian Bach spelled out his name musically (in German notation, BACH spells B natural-A-C-B flat) in the last movement of his uncompleted Art of Fugue, composers have been spelling out Bach's name in his honor. Pärt uses B-A-C-H as a starting point for his distortion of three Baroque forms: toccata, sarabande, and ricercar. The opening Toccata, for strings alone, begins in normal Baroque fashion before introducing anachronistic dissonances. The Toccata's unflagging rhythmic chords almost sound like a parody of Baroque rhythmic vitality and consistency; at a couple of points, the repeated sharp dissonances recall Bernard Herrman's famous music for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. The Sarabande which follows introduces the oboe and harpsichord, playing a typical winding Baroque melody. Suddenly, the oboe and harpsichord drop out, and what remains are massive dissonant chords played by the piano and strings. These two styles alternate throughout the movement, one style sometimes breaking off in the middle of a phrase to yield to the other. Also denoting an older form of contrapuntal music, "Ricercar" was an archaic term for "fugue" when Bach used it in his Musical Offering, and Pärt's fugue on B-A-C-H exploits the dissonances possible in a melody spread over four consecutive half-steps. Eventually, the music moves away from fugal textures to the positive chords which began the work, and the Ricercar ends with a resplendent major chord. Although quite successful in this exercise in polystylism, Pärt abandoned that approach soon after completing this work.

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