Trapped in Soviet Estonia, Arvo Pärt did not learn of Britten’s death until several days later.The Cantus was born in response to that loss: a descending A-minor scale, growing ever slower and lower, with a bell marking the Passage of suspended time. It is followed by Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and Kurt Weill’s Symphony No. 2, composed in exile after his flight from Nazi Germany.