Friday, January 08, 2010

Petar Zrinski


I have just been sent a link to a video site by Petar Zrinjski, it is mainly chant with rather interesting images.

6 comments:

pelerin said...

What a lovely site with truly stunning music and images. I looked at the Toccata and Fugue video and there are the most beautiful stained glass windows illustrating it.

I see that the young man putting these on Youtube is only 19. Wonderful! A real feast for the ears and eyes today as I listen to my neighbour shovelling snow outside trying to extract his car from the frozen road.

epsilon said...

A lot of the images are familiar from the film "Into Great Silence" about the Grande Chartreuse:

synopsis
Nestled deep in the postcard-perfect French Alps, the Grande Chartreuse is considered one of the world’s most ascetic monasteries. In 1984, German filmmaker Philip Gröning wrote to the Carthusian order for permission to make a documentary about them. They said they would get back to him. Sixteen years later, they were ready. Gröning, sans crew or artificial lighting, lived in the monks’ quarters for six months—filming their daily prayers, tasks, rituals and rare outdoor excursions. This transcendent, closely observed film seeks to embody a monastery, rather than simply depict one—it has no score, no voiceover and no archival footage. What remains is stunningly elemental: time, space and light. One of the most mesmerizing and poetic chronicles of spirituality ever created, INTO GREAT SILENCE dissolves the border between screen and audience with a total immersion into the hush of monastic life. More meditation than documentary, it’s a rare, transformative theatrical experience for all.
from
http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/film.php?directoryname=intogreatsilence


My experience of the film was that without words, music score etc. it was more real than reality and through the monks' silence every sound was deafening.

I've just discovered there's a book written relating to the Carthusians at Parkminster "An Infinity of Little Hours" about entrants in the 1960s - sounds fascinating... will explore more

The Parkminster site is beautiful:
http://www.parkminster.org.uk

"No coffins are used. The wooden cross over each grave bears no name but its form itself proclaims their faith. The homeland to which they have gone is with Christ in the world of the resurrection. The burial day of a monk is celebrated as a feast-day by a meal together in refectory."

How utterly perfect is this!

epsilon said...

Pelerin:

"listen to... shovelling snow outside" - that's the kind of real sounds that you remember the film "Into Great Silence" for!

Their life becomes meshed into one's own when thinking of this beautiful film.

"young man putting these on Youtube is only 19. Wonderful!"

Absolutely!

Fr Seán Coyle said...

Thank you, Father Ray, for drawing this site to our attention. May God bless young Petar.

johnf said...

What a wonderful site.

I was intrigued by the Old Roman Catholic Chant Popule Meus where the chant seems to have so much affinity with the Greek and Russian Orthodox.

I had never heard of this before. It's so beautiful. Where is it sung today?

God bless Petar Zrinjski and thank you Father for the link!

JF said...

Dear Epsilon,

I have read the book you mentioned and it makes a very worthy read,

I hope you ENJOY!

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