Ten Classical Pieces You Don't Care About (Yet): #5

                 Vladimir Martynov wrote the short piece The Beatitudes for chorus in 1998, re-scoring it for the Kronos String Quartet in 2006. A student of theology and history, Martynov is specifically influenced by Russian orthodox chant—timeless, static, seeking the life of the spirit. His direct, consonant style of expression is in line with minimalism of the Soviet Union in the 1970s, but not the pulsating variety of Philip Glass or John Adams.

I first heard The Beatitudes on a Saturday or Sunday, lying in bed at my mom’s house. Weary from a weekend of anxious and impatient post-grad thought processes, I needed something…but I didn’t know what. Writing about my first encounter with this little 5-minute piece, on my twin bed that doubled as a sofa when I was away at college, a special place in Ohio that gave me what felt like an unsure heart in exchange for my real one, left somewhere in the snow…well, to write about it is to be inaccurate. Others have called The Beatitudes “sweet, romantic without becoming sickening, giving us the effect of joyful anticipation frozen in sound,” or like entering a “prolonged state of grace.” Mystical but tender, they seem to say. 

There is no narrative, not the kind we think we want. At around 3 minutes, the distilled sweetness starts to grow—but it does not grow a backbone, never bears physical weight. There is swirling of strings, yes, but not enough to perfume us. There is intellectualism in its minimalism and its Biblical referent, but not enough to challenge us and humble us like Arvo Pärt…right? To answer this question, we have to take the piece on its own terms. The life of the spirit can be truly accessible, and can be sappy and profound; there is humility in the music itself, not just in our intellectual approach to it. When I first heard the piece, I didn’t notice the lack of thematic development, of harmonic playfulness, of significant ‘physical’ structure. I only noticed that my eyes weren't dry, maybe because the physical is nothing special to begin with, maybe because life is so darn beautiful sometimes.