The Prayer Cycle

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• VARIOS INTERPRETES THE PRAYER CYCLE

Music reviews of The Prayer Cycle

Music Review: The Prayer Cycle
Rating: 4 Stars

But unlike Lauds, Vespers are intended to be perfect -- although unskilled performers sing them -- so that their serenity creates an interior monastery. "Grace," in particular, is not perfect; it is a fierce, grinding drama. It begins with little more than a three-note ascending figure, echoed among the winds and snuffed out by a gruff descending scale-figure. Just as suddenly, however, Vespers poke its head into the proceedings, a kind of "hurry up" reminder that there are sterner matters to be dealt with. It is here I think of Bach's St. Matthew's Passion: "In the evening when it was cool"; or, "Father won't you carry me, Father won't you carry me, Father won't you carry me" -- an imperfect voice, as precipitous as the music roars, suddenly backs away, sound and motion throttle down to a minimum. Plucked strings begin to pick out the bare outline of a theme, and the winds lend tiny points of color to a fluttering of a flute. It ends, effortlessly, like it began.

"Father won't you carry me home": It is folk art; it is out of place, imperfect. Thus, its imperfection is part of its perfection; it accommodates all kinds of voices and vocal skills. Imperfections are therefore inevitable, as they are in life. But this is the point precisely; a remarkably transcendent beauty is generated when ordinary people, with their shortcomings, give themselves to an adagio of prayers rehabilitated not as heretical aberrations, but as valid views from a later age. Thus, at every moment when a self-respecting composer should be celebrating the sanctity of classical traditions, Elias has upset "normal" expectations and has gone wondering -- and from his perambulations, he has drawn distilled beauty, something truly remarkable.

B. L. Nelson

Description of The Prayer Cycle

Alternative Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Christian
• Classic Rock
• Classical
• World Music
• Pop
• Rock