Tag: contemporary classical

Arvo Part & John Tavener: Choral Works

~ cpbaroque ~ 1 Comment

…Holy minimalism, mystic minimalism, spiritual minimalism, or sacred minimalism are terms, sometimes pejorative, used to describe the musical works of a number of late-twentieth-century composers of Western classical music. The compositions are distinguished by a minimalist compositional aesthetic and a distinctly religious or mystical subject focus.

With the growing popularity of minimalist music in the 1960s and 1970s, which often broke sharply with prevailing musical aesthetics of serialism and aleatoric music, many composers, building on the work of such minimalists as Terry Riley, Philip Glass and Steve Reich, began to work with more traditional notions of simple melody and harmony in a radically simplified framework. This transition was seen variously as an aspect of musical post-modernism or as neo-romanticism, that is a return to the lyricism of the nineteenth century.

In the 1970s and continuing in the 1980s and 1990s, several composers, many of whom had previously worked in serial or experimental milieux, began working with similar aesthetic ideals – radically simplified compositional materials, a strong foundation in tonality or modality, and the use of simple, repetitive melodies – but included with them an explicitly religious orientation. Many of these composers looked to Renaissance or medieval music for inspiration, or to the liturgical music of the Orthodox Churches, some of which employ only a cappella in their services. Examples include Arvo Pärt (an Estonian Orthodox), John Tavener (a British composer who converted to Russian Orthodoxy), Henryk Górecki (a Polish Catholic), Alan Hovhaness (the earliest mystic minimalist), Sofia Gubaidulina, Giya Kancheli, Hans Otte, Pēteris Vasks and Vladimír Godár.

Despite being grouped together, the composers tend to dislike the term, and are by no means a “school” of close-knit associates. Their widely differing nationalities, religious backgrounds, and compositional inspirations make the term problematic, but it is nonetheless in widespread use, sometimes critically, among musicologists and music critics, primarily because of the lack of a better term. “Neo-Contemplative Music” is one example of a suitable alternative…”

Joby Talbot: Path of Miracles (2005)

~ cpbaroque

My own journey towards writing the journey that is Path of Miracles began one dreary South London afternoon in the late ‘80s when I happened to hear a BBC radio program about choral music of the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan. In those days Radio 3 had a regular ethnomusicology slot (this was before the term “world music” was coined – or at least before the BBC cottoned onto it), and I would assiduously tune in every week in an effort to temporarily escape the confines of my monochromatic suburban teenage existence.
I clearly remember lying on the floor of the attic room in my parents’ house. As the slow, endless glissando of one particular piece – the Bunun tribe’s hauntingly unique Pasiputput – drew me in, I became aware that I was hallucinating that the room’s eaves were bowing outward. It was a moment of alarming intensity. At some point, the idea of trying to recreate something similar in a piece of my own must have lodged at the back of my brain.
A decade and a half later, when Nigel Short of the English choir tenebrae approached me with the idea of writing a piece about the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the Pasiputput sprang to mind. Pasiputput is a traditional ritual, sung to celebrate the sowing of the year’s crops, and a successful performance – judged by the purity of the final chord’s intonation – is believed to correlate directly to the success of the resultant harvest.
Likewise, in the nine years since the piece was first planted, Path of
Miracles has grown and grown until it finds itself here, halfway around the world, in the hands of Craig Hella Johnson and the wonderful Conspirare. I hope you enjoy the performance.

– Joby Talbot

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