Exit music: The pieces which offer comfort in our final moments

Patrick Giles was a crisis worker for an AIDS charity in the 1980s, constantly losing people he knew to the disease. Life, he found, was devoid of hope. During this dark time a glimmer of comfort for those affected came from an unusual source – the music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.

He later reflected: "Tabula Rasa's relentlessly severe, repetitive and deeply inspiring sound had a powerful impact on my dying friends and their attendants. 'It sounds like the motion of angels' wings,' a client whom I had a secret crush on once said.

"The music brought comfort to many of us after we'd given up on the very possibility of it. People played it at night, during meditation and, especially, when they were in the hospital and feared they were dying. We had learned that even patients in comas were still capable of hearing, and several people with AIDS requested Pärt on their death beds."

Giles' words were later recalled by music critic Alex Ross in The New Yorker. The article sparked something for theatre maker Matthew Lenton.

Lenton said: "There is a lot of silence and space in Arvo Pärt’s work, and you can really put yourself into gaps between the notes. The question was, what can I add to the music? [In the article] I found the 'hook' which would enable Vanishing Point to give theatrical context to the music.

"It made me think about the role music, and more broadly art, plays in our lives and the offer one person makes to another when they offer care – especially within a care system."

Lenton is far from the only person who continues to be inspired by Pärt’s music, as Scottish Ensemble blogger in residence Rosie Davies discovered during a deep dive into the YouTube comments on his music.

But the show is not purely Lenton's vision. His theatre company Vanishing Point worked with string orchestra Scottish Ensemble to create Tabula Rasa, including an intense development week at Glasgow's Tramway, where participants covered a range of topics from their beliefs about social care, to the concept of snow, to T.K. Maxx.

For Lenton, working in close collaboration with Scottish Ensemble played a major role in getting Tabula Rasa into shape.

He said: "The musicians all had ideas about the form of the show and its subject matter and were willing to try many different approaches. It really helped me see what the show could be and what it could not be.

"Importantly they also took the actors and me through the mechanics of the music, explaining how it is structured and how something so simple can seem and feel so complex."

When researching the concept of mindfulness, the Scottish Ensemble played for people using the services of the Maggie's Centre in Dundee, an institution which offers support to people with cancer and those caring for them.

Following the performance of a number of pieces, they discussed the effect that listening to the music had on their emotions.