8. Arvo PärtSymphony No. 3

I love Arvo Pärt because it’s like someone who has taken a nursery rhyme, and turned it into the most exquisite thing you’ll ever hear. You have composers like Mahler, and I do love Mahler, I love his third movement – he’s just divine – but there’s something about Arvo Pärt that he can just take this simple motif, and repeat it over about five bars. He’ll sweep along, and you’re completely and utterly enchanted by the simplicity of this mantric, kind of cyclical music. It’s almost like a kind of illusion. The thing that amazes me about most composers, is that they think they have to do something terribly complicated, when in fact he shows us very clearly that they don’t. He shows us that the simple things are the things that touch us deeply.