Interest in Arvo Pärt is mushrooming

Gunther Herbig's CD of his transcriptions for electric guitar of Arvo Pärt's music was recommended in my previous post. That new release should also have been recommended for Gunther Herbig's sleeve essay which is a much-needed reminder that great music is a personal and private experience, and not a Facebook moment. Here is an extract:

 "As wanderers through time and space we navigate by certain key experiences that shape and influence the charts by which we travel. One of those key moments in my life happened on a Sunday. It was the mid-80s in the beautiful North German town of Lübeck where I studied music. It was winter, a magical bright sunny day and, like in a Brueghel painting, the colours mixed between the blue of the sky, the gold of the sun, the white set of the snow and ice and the dark winter clothes of strolling people on the frozen river Wakentiz against the red bricks of the city. 

Maybe it was the magic mushrooms. It was a shamanic and spiritual experience, breathing in the universe through every pore of my being. We were Romantics; fans of Wagner, Mahler, Strauss, Stravinsky, Britten and Henze, with their large gestures huge cords and the extravagant intervals to heighten the big drama of life in orchestral terms. More was more. 

Later that afternoon, we went home to our dark student flat, leaving the magic of the sunshine behind and put on the ECM album Tabula Rasa with music by Arvo Pärt. And everything changed......" 

Graphic is a detail from Alex Grey's Blue Moon Mushroom, 2021, acrylic on wood.

Comments

Jerome Langguth said…
The Gunter Herbig disc is indeed wonderful. Thank you for the recommendation, and it is very nice to see new On An Overgrown Path posts.

Jerome
4:54 pm
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