Het derde oor

The last twenty years has seen the emergence in classical music of a trend known as 'new spiritual music'. The composer Arvo Pärt from Estonia is seen as the founding father of this trend with his interest in the clear unison of Gregorian chants. Other composers who are counted among the new spirituals are: the Georgian Giya Kantsjeli, the Pole Hendryk Görecki, the Britons John Taverner and Gavin Bryars and the Dutchman Joep Franssens. They are commercially successful while their clear preference for simplicity and tonality has also divided the music world into outspoken supporters and opponents. The documentary The Third Ear maps out the debate that New Spirituality has caused in classical music. A debate in which the head and the heart struggle for supremacy.