Reading this book expands music awareness and understanding of Eastern Orthodoxy (Greek, Russian). I almost wish I had copies of each composition so I could have listened to it as I read the author's description. The same statement could be made about understanding the many references to Eastern Orthodoxy. However, I am glad I persevered. I am going to YouTube to find presentations of his compositions. Should be enlightening.

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Elizabeth80 | 2 andra recensioner | Jul 29, 2023 |

How to Be a Sinner av Peter Bouteneff

Not Actually a How To Guide
Review of the St. Vladimir's Seminary Press (SVSPress) audiobook edition (March 2022) narrated by the author, of the SVSPress paperback original (2018)

And so the title just came right out of the blue. How to Be a Sinner, and I realize it's intended to provoke a little bit. Obviously, I'm not writing a book on how to sin better, but how to be what the church calls a sinner. - from an interview with the author (see the 'short interview' link below).

This book approaches the idea of being a sinner from the aspect of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but even as a Lutheran Christian I found it to be an interesting and approachable work. Each of the chapter readings were somewhat like listening to a Sunday sermon and thus felt totally familiar.

I was curious about this work as I know Professor Bouteneff through his work on the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, who is also of the Eastern Orthodox faith. His previous books related to Pärt were excellent, as author: Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence (2015) & as co-editor Arvo Pärt: Sounding the Sacred (2020).

A final confession, I find Professor Bouteneff's very calm and measured narration to be ASMR triggering at times, which is often the case for those with ASMR sensitivity i.e. listening to experts calmly discuss their topics of expertise. I won't go further into ASMR here, but if you are not familiar with the term or the sensation, then I went into it at length in an earlier review of Virginia Wolff's Mrs. Dalloway (1925).

Trivia and Links
A short interview with the author on the reasons for writing the book here.
A longer interview with the author about the book and other works here.… (mer)

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alanteder | Mar 19, 2022 |

Arvo Pärt: Sounding the Sacred av Peter C. Bouteneff

From Sound to Silence 1=1+1=1
Review of the Fordham University Press paperback edition (Dec. 2020)

This collection of essays built around the works of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt grew out of the papers originally presented at the same-titled conference May 1-4, 2017 in New York City.
Conference poster can be seen at https://www.arvopart.ee/wp-content/uploads/APP-SoundingSacred-POSTER8X11.jpg
Conference poster sourced from the Arvo Pärt Centre.

The collection is especially well organized in themes with an Introduction followed by sections of History & Context, Performance, Materiality & Phenomenology, and Theology. Several of the essays are highly technical and do require knowledge of music theory and audiology to fully appreciate. To balance that there is a sufficient amount of basic history of the composer and his life and times for the non-technical reader. Although the conference was built around the theme of the sacred in the composer's works, the essays do not overly dwell on that aspect except for those in the Theology section.

I especially liked Sevin Yaraman's concluding essay In the Beginning There Was Sound: Hearing, Tintinnabuli and Musical Meaning in Sufism which expanded the Pärt universe into the realm of Sufism. The essay also extended Nora Pärt's famous equation which describes the effect of tintinnabuli that 1+1=1 (meaning that the Melody voice and the Tintinnabuli-voice sounding together are one sound and not two). Yaraman proposes the equation 1=1+1=1 to symbolize that from the one Source we are split into Two in this life until we return to the One in the end.

Highly recommended for deep Pärt scholars. For newcomers The Cambridge Companion to Arvo Pärt> (2012) ed. Andrew Shenton is the ideal entry level work.

Trivia and Link
The book contains the teaser that Kevin C. Carnes, author of Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa (2017) is working on an additional book which is tentatively titled Sounds Beyond: Arvo Pärt and the 1970s Soviet Underground.… (mer)

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alanteder | Mar 1, 2021 |

The Orthodox Christian Church: History, Beliefs, and… av Prof. Peter Bouteneff DPhil

This audiobook is a lecture from an Orthodox seminary professor that's a crash course over Eastern Orthodoxy. A good deal I already knew from my studies, but some of my misconceptions were dispelled.

I, like many people, have always had the image of the Orthodox as being Catholics without the pope and with icons instead of statues. I've even heard some Catholic apologists state basically that. The differences seem minor, especially if you're indifferent to religion. But I see now that the differences are much more pronounced than I believed.… (mer)

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neverstopreading | Jan 11, 2018 |

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