In 2026, Arvo Pärt’s piano piece Für Alina will mark its 50th anniversary. To celebrate this milestone, the Arvo Pärt Centre is curating an exhibition and invites people to share their personal stories and experiences connected to this composition. Every memory is a valuable addition to our archive.
The sketch of “Für Alina” in Arvo Pärt’s musical diary.
Für Alina as a symbol of new beginnings
Although Für Alina is one of the smallest works in Arvo Pärt’s oeuvre, it is also among the most significant. Written in February 1976, it was the first piece Pärt presented publicly after a long creative crisis. It also marked the beginning of his tintinnabuli style.
For the composer, Für Alina is deeply personal. The piece is named after the daughter of a close friend of Arvo and Nora Pärt, whose life was separated from her mother by the Iron Curtain. Dedicated as a musical offering, the piece was meant to bring comfort, above all, to the mother longing for her child.
At the same time, Für Alina also expresses the composer’s own yearning for spiritual and musical purification. “This is what the soul of a sinner might look like after confession – when they have confessed, when a path has been cleared before them, when some kind of curtain has been drawn [back],” Pärt describes the work’s atmosphere in metaphorical terms.
For many listeners, the piece is also associated with the beginning of new life. Since its recording in 1999 by ECM Records, Pärt has received numerous messages saying that Für Alina was played during childbirth. More than that, quite a few of the girls born to its sound have been given the name Alina.
Share your Für Alina story
To mark the 50th anniversary of Für Alina, we invite listeners to share their memories. If you have a personal story connected to this piece, you can submit it by email at alina@arvopart.ee. Stories can be written, recorded as a voice message or sent as a video.
We look forward to receiving your stories until 11 September, the day Arvo Pärt celebrates his 90th birthday.