The Beatitudes

A new (for me) sacred minimalist: Vladimir Martynov.

It is a family resemblance of music making that has deeply enriched the landscape of the last quarter of the last century and the first of this.

Compellingly it is a 'phenomena' deeply rooted in 'Eastern' Europe either by birth (Gorecki, Martynov, Part) or adoption (John Tavener) and it is a true gift of a music that transcends emotion into feeling.

I recall Metropolitan Anthony, the long running and wonderfully holy Russian Archbishop in London, describe how his choir had finally realised the difference between allowing their music to express the reality of feeling, a reality that sang through them, and imparting their emotion to the music that they were singing. The former came from a place in themselves that was beyond their egos, the latter was singing from their moods, their egos.

At their purest, the sacred minimalists allow the music at the heart of things to sing through the musicians and you glimpse time held in eternity.

As Henry Vaughan would say....

I SAW Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
              All calm, as it was bright ;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years
                      Driv'n by the spheres                                  
Like a vast shadow mov'd ; in which the world
                      And all her train were hurl'd.
The doting lover in his quaintest strain
                      Did there complain ;
Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,                        
                      Wit's sour delights ;
With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure,
                      Yet his dear treasure,
All scatter'd lay, while he his eyes did pour
                      Upon a flow'r.                                          

...only replace seeing with hearing...chiming spheres rather than rings of light...or perhaps chiming spheres as rings of light!