259: Condition of the Heart

Around the World in a Day (1985)
From the initial piano flutterings until the dying timpani heartbeat, Condition of the Heart is a breathtaking composition. The first two minutes are Edenic in their beauty and paint a campestral paradise with frolicking deer and darting butterflies. Béla Bartók dreaming of our animal past. Ninety seconds in and this idyllic scene is disturbed by a laser beam that cuts the atmosphere in two. It’s the bite of the apple. The opening of the box. The stealing of the gods’ fire. Man awakens from his Arcadian slumber and after blinking the sleep out of his eyes falls into a downward spiral of shame, heartbreak and loss. A terminal condition of the heart, without which the history of music would just be nursery rhymes and military tattoos.