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Marsyas, part 1: Music by Arvo Prt | | guardian.co.uk Arts

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Marsyas,part1:MusicbyArvo
Prt
Thecomposerdelivershismusicalresponseto
Kapoor'ssculptureinaworldpremiere
Saturday 25 January 2003
guardian.co.uk
Estonian composer Arvo Prt's musical response to
Marsyas, LamenTate: Homage to Anish Kapoor and his
sculpture Marsyas for piano and orchestra (2002), is
unveiled at Tate Modern in a world premiere.
"When I rst saw Marsyas," Prt says, "my rst impression
was that I was standing before my own body and was
dead - at once in the future and the present. Suddenly, my
life appeared in a different light. I was moved to ask
myself just what I could still manage to accomplish in the
time left to me.
"Death and suffering are the themes that concern every
person born into this world. The way in which the individual
comes to terms with these issues (or fails to do so)
determines his attitude towards life - whether consciously
or unconsciously.
"With its great size, Kapoor's sculpture shatters not only
concepts of space, but also concepts of time. The
boundary between time and timelessness no longer seems
so important.
"This is the subject underlying my composition
LamenTate. Accordingly, I have written a lamento - not for
the dead, but for the living, who have to deal with these
issues for themselves. "In the presence of Kapoor's work I
sense a completeness in its harmonious and naturally
owing form, and in the rather paradoxical effect of
oating lightness in spite of overwhelming dimensions.
With its trumpet-like form, the sculpture is suggestive of
music. This larger-than-life "trumpet-corpse" could be
proclaiming the end of the world.
"In his sculpture, Anish Kapoor has caught very well the
tragic element of the Marsyas myth. As in a relay race, I
received the baton directly from the hands of the
sculpture - and not from the legend itself. My composition
is somewhat more indirectly based on the Marsyas myth. It
has been conceived neither as an illustration nor as a
decoration of the sculpture; it concentrates rather on its
own, purely musical substance, in order to communicate
the message I associate with Kapoor's creation.
LamenTate is at 7.30pm; it is also in a double-bill with
For an End to the Judgment of God, at 8.30pm

Tickets
Ticketmaster 0870 060 2329 (24 hr)
Tate Ticketing 020 7887 8888 (mon-fri 10.00-17.50)
Buy tickets online
Useful links
Tate website
More information on Tate and Egg Live

https://www.theguardian.com/arts/tateandegg/story/0,12775,875274,00.html

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Marsyas, part 1: Music by Arvo Prt | | guardian.co.uk Arts

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