Published
Lamentate
Arvo Pärt: “My first impression was that I, as a living being, was standing before my own body and was dead – as in a time-warp perspective, at once in the future and the present. /…/ Death and suffering are the themes that concern every person born into this world. The way in which the individual comes to terms with these issues (or fails to do so) determines his attitude towards life – whether consciously or unconsciously. With its great size, Anish Kapoor’s sculpture shatters not only the concepts of space, but also – in my view – concepts of time. The boundary between time and timelessness no longer seems so evident. /…/ Accordingly, I have written a lamento – not for the dead, but for the living, who have to deal with these issues for themselves. /…/ A lamento for us, struggling with the pain and hopelessness of this world.
There are two sacred texts hidden in the music here. The dramatic culmination of the first musical passage is unravelled by the Dies irae sequence from the Mass of the Dead: Day of wrath and doom impending …
“I have written a lamento – not for the dead, but for the living.”