Passion Week

What do YOU feel like when you make a new (good) discovery?

For me, there is usually a sense of excitement and delight. But just occasionally, alongside that pleasant buzz, there's a strange feeling of frustration and annoyance. How is it that I didn't know this already? How did it escape me thus far? Have I been going around with my eyes and ears closed? Why did nobody tell me...?

I had one of those moments very recently.

I listen to all kinds of music. And I mean all kinds. But I've been listening to so-called 'classical music' since I was about 14 years old. I first discovered Anton Bruckner 35 years ago when it wasn't easy to buy recordings of his music!

So how is it that I'd never heard of Alexander Tikhonovich Grechaninov until last week? It's not as if he is a newcomer to the music scene. He was born in Russia in 1864 and died in the USA in 1956. In between he wrote a lot of music. And some of it is simply wonderful, including this recording of his Opus 58 - "Passion Week" which I just bought.

It is sung in Slavonic. I don't understand a word of it.

And I don't CARE.

There are some things that need to be understood in a different way. All I do know is that this music touches me really deep down. Some of it is based on traditional Orthodox chants used in Holy Week services. It is unaccompanied choral singing at its very best.

You can listen to an extract for yourself. Not everybody's kind of music. But I love it.

However, what I am most grateful for with this recording is the reminder that I actually know so very little about anything and that there are so many more things in the world that so far I don't know anything about at all.

But it is all out there just waiting to be discovered by those with eyes to see and ears to hear and minds open to new things.