Breathing Life

For someone who was classically-trained, I suppose I have the worst taste. If I'd been a conductor, I would have been Fiedler, Ormandy, or best yet, Ansermet -- populists all, who never conducted an avant-garde note ... that I know of. Avant-garde music bores me to the point of vandalism.

I only discovered why about a decade ago, while screening some series of music history DVDs that I can't seem to track down.

Time and again, the composers of ugly, depressing, 20th Century classical music admitted, in letters and interviews, that they had painted sonic pictures of the horrors of war -- World War I, to be exact.

That music was supposed to be ugly.

Alas, my teachers and conductors never explained the deeply-emotional origins of those pieces, only included them in the repertoire for musical breadth, and for their use of avant-garde playing techniques -- many of which are pretty cool. Even if they are used in an ugly, depressing context.

Those composers are all gone now. So, imagine a major, 20th Century composer, still living, whose music breathes life and healing. Arvo Pärt, an Estonian whose music is based in Gregorian chant, is that composer. 

Here is his "St. Silouan's Song", performed by the Turin Philharmonic Strings.