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Henryk Mikołaj Górecki was a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. He studied at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice... between 1955 and 1960. In 1968, he joined the faculty and rose to provost before resigning in 1979. Górecki became a leading figure of the Polish avant-garde during the post-Stalin cultural thaw. His Webernian-influenced serialist works of the 1950s and 1960s were characterized by adherence to dissonant modernism and drew influence from Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki and Kazimierz Serocki. He continued in this direction throughout the 1960s, but by the mid-1970s had changed to a less complex sacred minimalist sound, exemplified by the transitional Symphony No. 2 and the hugely popular Symphony No. 3 . This later style developed through several other distinct phases, from such works as his 1979 Beatus Vir, to the choral 1981 hymn Miserere, the 1993 Kleines Requiem für eine Polka and his requiem Good Night.
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Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has... worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also takes inspiration from Gregorian chant. Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia. A prolonged struggle with Soviet officials led him to emigrate with his wife and their two sons in 1980. He lived first in Vienna, Austria, where he took Austrian citizenship, and then re-located to Berlin, Germany. He returned to Estonia around the turn of the 21st century and now lives alternately in Berlin and in Tallinn. Familiar works by Pärt are Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten for string orchestra and bell and the string quintet "Fratres I" , which he transcribed for string orchestra and percussion, the solo violin "Fratres II" and the cello ensemble "Fratres III" . Pärt is often identified with the school of minimalism and, more specifically, that of mystic minimalism or holy minimalism.
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