Arvo pärt music

CD Review

Despite the fact that it was written to celebrate the ^th anniversary of the Cologne Cathedral, Kanon pokajanen sounds like a private work, very close to the heart of Estonian-born composer Arvo Pärt.

A Reflection on Arvo Pärt's "Kanon Pokajanen

The text, sung in Church Slavonic, is a plea for repentance that is quite a bit older than even the Cologne Cathedral; scholars date it to somewhere around A.D. Pärt believes that the use of Church Slavonic had a major impact on the compositional process, although the differences well might have been subconscious. Comparing Kanon pokajanen with the English-language Litany, he writes, "I used identical, strictly defined rules of composition and yet the outcome is very different in each case."

It is not surprising, then, that unwary listeners who happen across Kanon pokajanen on the speakers of their local record store might mistake it for a recording of traditional music associated with the Russian Orthodox church.

The components are there