Festina lente

• Festina lente (Make Haste Slowly) was composed for strings, plus harp ad lib, in 1986 (pub. 1988). It is an early example of Pärt’s tintinnabuli style.¹
• The title is taken from the paradoxical proverb “make haste slowly” which has been attributed to multiple historical figures, including Caesar Augustus, first Roman Emperor.² It has also been translated “more haste, less speed.”³
• The title refers to the structure of the piece, which is a proportional canon. In this piece, there are three voices playing the same melody but at different speeds.⁴
• The publisher’s introduction to the piece offers this explanatory quote from musicologist Leopold Brauneiss:

“The proverbial title Festina lente (Make haste slowly)…points towards the paradoxical time structure of the proportional canon: as the melody proceeds fast and slow at the same time, the fastest voice always sounds at the same time as its own stretched past.”

Leopold Brauneiss⁵

1. Paul D. Hillier, “Pärt, Arvo,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 19, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000020964.
2. “Arvo Pärt: Festina lente,” Universal Edition, accessed December 11, 2019, https://www.universaledition.com/arvo-part-534/works/festina-lente-2452
3. C. Suetonius Tranquillus, trans. Alexander Thomson, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Project Gutenberg, accessed December 11, 2019, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6400/6400-h/6400-h.htm#link2H_4_0003. 
4.  Arvo Pärt: Festina lente,” Universal Edition, accessed December 11, 2019, https://www.universaledition.com/arvo-part-534/works/festina-lente-2452
5. Quoted in Ibid.