Home
The Beauty Part
Do you recall how Michael Moore handled the attack on the World Trade Center in 'Fahrenheit 9/11'?
To the surprise of those who hate him, he did it very, very artfully.
Almost a minute of blank screen, with only sound to tell you what's happening. Sounds of the planes hitting the Towers--sounds you've never heard before--and the human counterpoint: people screaming. Then we see papers blowing in a smoke-filled sky, an abstract image of loss. And music: Arvo Part's 'Cantus In Memory Of Benjamin Britten,' a solemn meditation, with bells and solitary voices and silences between notes.
Whoever picked Arvo Part knew what he/she was doing. Because that is holy music--music that speaks, without intermediaries, to the soul. Which is why, when AIDS first swept across New York City in the 1980s, 'Cantus In Memory Of Benjamin Britten'--from the 'Tabula Rasa' CD--is said to have been a great favorite of dying men in the final weeks of their lives. For this music both acknowledges grief and suggests completion. It is, as Part has described it, 'like light going through a prism.'
Part's music is timeless. If you must think of an antecedent, try Bach, for Part and Bach both use religious texts, in Latin. And Part, like Bach, favors a structure that, for all its intricacies, is fundamentally simple--a prayer to God. You really ought to listen to a bit of his 'Te Deum'.
To the surprise of those who hate him, he did it very, very artfully.
Almost a minute of blank screen, with only sound to tell you what's happening. Sounds of the planes hitting the Towers--sounds you've never heard before--and the human counterpoint: people screaming. Then we see papers blowing in a smoke-filled sky, an abstract image of loss. And music: Arvo Part's 'Cantus In Memory Of Benjamin Britten,' a solemn meditation, with bells and solitary voices and silences between notes.
Whoever picked Arvo Part knew what he/she was doing. Because that is holy music--music that speaks, without intermediaries, to the soul. Which is why, when AIDS first swept across New York City in the 1980s, 'Cantus In Memory Of Benjamin Britten'--from the 'Tabula Rasa' CD--is said to have been a great favorite of dying men in the final weeks of their lives. For this music both acknowledges grief and suggests completion. It is, as Part has described it, 'like light going through a prism.'
Part's music is timeless. If you must think of an antecedent, try Bach, for Part and Bach both use religious texts, in Latin. And Part, like Bach, favors a structure that, for all its intricacies, is fundamentally simple--a prayer to God. You really ought to listen to a bit of his 'Te Deum'.
