Tim asked: "So I have to ask: where were you when you discovered Arvo Pärt?"
I remember distinctly, Tim: I first heard his music on a tape from you, By the Waters of Babylon. If you have forgotten what was on this tape, the way I have with many a mix I have made, it is a beautiful collection of contemporary classical music, probably the some of the first of that that I had heard. It includes "An Du Wassern zu Babel" and "De Profundis" and "Pari Intervallis." In the liner notes, you recommended Te Deum, which I went out and bought.
But now for the where part, which stuck with me, even though there obviously were some "wheres" where I listened to your tape first.
I brought home the Te Deum CD, and I was very excited to listen to it. Then it was one of those Ann Arbor afternoons that broke out in a tremendous thunderstorm, and I was absolutely conflicted about whether to listen to the beautiful storm or the beautiful CD.
Pärt won out, and now that music always has violent weather in the background.
And incidentally, in those liner notes you also said, "You must get a copy of Górecki’s Symphony #3. I did, and you were right.
This whole story means, though, that really this question comes back to, where were YOU?
And Dear Reader, if you’re a Pärt listener, where were you?
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2 comments:
I read about Part in an article in the New Yorker and bought Kanon Pokajanen from Amazon never having heard any of his music. So I listened to it at home, but it felt like a new world.
Urgh. Hate it when I completely forget what's on a mix tape I gave someone. In my defense, it was before I kept notes on every mix--and of course well before iTunes.
I was introduced to Pärt's music by my college Glee Club director; we took "De Profundis" on tour with us through the south, including (I would say ominously, but it was 13 years prior to Katrina) the Holy Name Church at Loyola in New Orleans. I scarfed up a bunch of the rest of his recordings at Plan 9 then branched out to Gorecki thanks to the BMG Music Club. The Te Deum I heard about from a fellow Club member in 1993.
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