Cantus

In listening to the symphony play Arvo Part’s Cantus in Memorium over the weekend, I was struck by several ideas.

First, silence is programmed into the score as part of the music. As in nature, silence is not absence, but presence. It is not waiting for something to happen, it is already happening, because we are waiting in the meadows, in the woods, and on top of North Dome, listening.

Second, when we come to nature, we often enter with our moods, and this colors what we hear. We should use the time we spend traveling to places like Yosemite to prepare to listen to nature’s different sounds.

Third, bells have a major voice in the piece. Part was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church where bells have a rich history of sounding over the mountains and countryside calling people to something significant. When the last bell rings in Part’s Cantus, after the strings descend through dissonance to resonate together, it’s like the sky suddenly clearing after the turbulence of a storm.