Robert Fripp's Diary

Bredonborough A beautiful morning by

18.46

Bredonborough.

A beautiful morning by the back door…

Tasty pears in the entrance carriageway are ready for eating…

Into the garden, and looking back to the house from the Cherry Walk…

Garden end…

The Hand of God…

Behind there are some tasty plums I…

II…

Morning & afternoon in the Cellar listening to Churchscapes in Estonia, with a break to moving some furniture to World HQ.

Continuing to deal with the arising issue.

19.23  From the DGM Guestbook…

Churchscaping In Estonia:: Posted by Sid Smith on Sun., Sep 3, 2006

Thanks to Samuel for sending in this eye&ear witness account of RF in Estonia.

"Having witnessed three Estonian churchscapes performances myself one can describe them only as a huge success. Both from the performers as from the audiences point of view. Can you imagine that at least two shows were sold out and additional stools were brought in for others. Only in Tallinn the audience reached as high as 500 persons I was told and I can’t imagine that soundscape performances have drawn as much attention anywhere.

 But not the figures are important. It’s all about the quality of the music which was performed. Having followed Roberts soundscaping for many years one can distinguish several stages in their ongoing development. In Estonia the new level was reached in the suprising unision between the performer, the audience and the sacral spaces. So much soloing over the floating cascade of soundscapes as during this tour I haven’t heard before. And it was beautiful! My only "complaint" is that some of the wonderful solos  were buried under the  background soundscapes and hence bearly audiable.

The response from the audience was stunning. This pretty difficult music was received very well and the atmosphere was always positive reaching to the standing ovations  (a very rear reaction from the nordic people) and demands for encores. My only explanation to this is that perhaps Estonians found something similar in Roberts music to that of Arvo Pärts.

As one of the reviewers mentioned after the gig that in the booklet people were asked to step down from the speedtrain of life but he was not able to get back on the train afterwards because the impact of the churchscapes was so strong.

Now I keep my fingers crossed  that at least some of the Estonian churchscapes will be released soon."

I woke this morning with Estonian Churchscapes on my mind. The above review confirms my sense: Churchscapes were well received in Estonia. Why? The best answer I can find is, probably, because the music was taken seriously. So, isn’t it in the US or Western Europe? Actually, in the main, not. More like this is weird stuff for a rock guitarist to be doing, so get on with it & play more notes. Perhaps also a sense of this is what he does for a hobby, when he isn’t doing his proper job.

In Estonia, this music was the player’s proper job. The audiences gave it the time, space & attention it (I hope) deserved. And accordingly, the potential in the music came closer to realisation.