In the booklet accompanying Arvo Pärt’s Miserere, Herman Conen introduces the piece entitled “Sarah Was Ninety Years Old,” composed in 1977, with a story from the opening scene of Andrej Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice, made in 1985-86.[1] Alexander, an intellectual, tells the story to his son as he is planting a withering tree. Once upon a time there was an old monk by the name of Pamve who planted a withering tree on a mountainside high above the monastery and told a novice by the name of Joann Kolov to water it every day. Pamve died and Joann watered the tree until it blossomed three years later. To wit, faith was ultimately rewarded, just as Sarah ultimately conceived late in life despite of Abraham’s jeers. A wonderful story, except that it would have been even more wonderful had the miserable tree never blossomed.

To Derek Croome

Footnote

1. “The Lenten Time of Music: On the Music of Arvo Pärt,” ECM Records, 1991, no page numbers.