From the Beginning

Over the past four decades, both Arvo Pärt and Robert Wilson have been working toward their own particular aesthetics of stillness, stripping away the inessential to reveal ideas at once simple and universal. Although the two have followed very different paths, their works are not without obvious affinities. Mr Pärt’s choral works have drawn inspiration from the performative traditions of the Orthodox Church, and even some of his nominally secular chamber and orchestral works have a patient grandeur that contains the force of ritual. Music, of course, has been a consistent and integral presence in Robert Wilson’s often ritualistic vision of theatre, and some of his greatest creations have come about as the result of close collaborations with musicians as diverse as Philip Glass and Tom Waits. 

For Adam’s Passion – which first appeared in…