Modern?Contemporary?New?

 It was, of course, the piano piece Für Alina, published by Universal and recorded on ECM. It’s a lovely piece, or, one might say, a potentially lovely piece: there’s not much about the notation that would constrain one to play it with the devotional calm that makes it soulful. You kind of have to know Pärt’s reputation as a “Holy Minimalist” in order to know what atmosphere to play it with; the notation doesn’t tell you much, which is a bad thing if you’re a Downtown composer, but apparently fine if you’re Estonian. [中略]

 Lots of American composers have written music this simple, even this spiritual in intent: Peter Garland, Beth Anderson, Elodie Lauten, Mary Jane Leach, Daniel Goode, Jim Fox, William Duckworth, myself. But of course, we’re not Estonian, we don’t have reputations as Holy Men, and so our scores, neither published by Universal nor recorded on ECM, are neglected and ignored as the overly simple, notationally incomplete, amateurish screeds that they apparently must be.