"And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." Luke 2:17-19 KJV. While countless modern composers have produced liturgically based produced works, their attitude towards the textual basis of their works usually seems an overwhelmingly detached one—a commentary on a musical (or cultural) tradition rather than an expression of faith. Arvo Pärt's personal convictions, however, make any reading of his works, particularly his sacred music, a very personal exploration of the composer's spirituality. Pärt's Magnificat (for SSATB choir with soprano soloist), though not considered among the composer's landmark works, nonetheless characterizes the composer's religious devotion, and places the listener within a startlingly sensitive musical environment. Perhaps the personal nature of the piece can be partly attributed to the personal nature of the text: Mary's prayer of gratitude at being chosen as the mother of Jesus. Pärt's setting, built upon his trademark "tintinnabular" technique, is at once breathlessly serene and taut with anticipation. The technique, which takes its name from a word describing the sound of a struck bell, combines voices homophonically in such a way that one voice outlines simple, scalar melodies, while the other leaps above and below the melodic line, always to notes within the tonic triad. The result is a kind of sonorous tonal reverberation that is always harmonically stable, but full of shimmering dissonances from the melodic voices. This texture lends itself well to the kind of contemplation and introspection suggested by the text. Pärt maps the music onto the text in such a way that melodic lines emphasize the rhythmic contours of speech and emphasized syllables receive the appropriate melodic and duration weight. Throughout this work, the texture alternates between two-voices and tutti. The paired-voice passages are strikingly crystalline; in every case, they consist of a single melodic part set against a meditatively repeated note, in the solo or first soprano part, on the fifth scale degree of F minor (C an octave above middle C). The tutti sections provide lush contrasts to the delicate voice-pair sections. In a few places, Pärt surprisingly strays from the strict diatonicism that predominates the piece by preceding unison "cadences" with colorful chromatic inflections. And though the F minor tonality is never doubted or challenged, at many places where one would expect a solid triadic repose—including the last chord of the piece—Pärt's melodic formula leaves non-chord tones glimmering dissonantly in the air.

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