Arvo Pärt

 I should have posted this 'shorty' post at the end of BBC Radio 3's composer of the week session on Arvo Pärt, but life (as usual) intervened.

Anyone interested in Arvo Pärt will have encountered his music - Spiegel in Spiegel, Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten. Almost minimalist, but not  ... still fitting well into a personal 'canon' for me that includes Philip Glass, Max Richter etc. - something otherworldly, contemplative but 'areligious' if that's a reasonable word. His own term for his particular music is 'tintinnabuli' and yes, it is music for whom the bell tolls.

Up until the R3 prog, his music uplifted me when I heard it, but by the time I had finished listening to the programme through the week, I found I had already ordered a CD from Amazon. Why? His music is freely available on youtube? My purchase would mean nothing to him, but I felt I needed to acknowledge the debt I owe to him for bringing such beauty into my world. The CD then played continuously for the following week. 

It's age ... maybe. I recognise few, if any, 'pop' musicians today (I've heard Taylor Swift by accident, possibly twice, and as for the ginger guy with glasses whose name I can't recall just now ... I'm sure he is good). It's as if I recognise my time here is limited and what I seek is modern music that encompasses a wider and older world than pop can do. There is music that can inspire memories of my life - recollections of young times, fun times, wild times, times that I would rather not have happened but have, but these are episodes in life now gone. That is music of my past, which I still enjoy today, but they are not of today. One day, but not yet, I might find myself only listening to John Cage and 4'33" LOL!