Arvo Pärt on electric guitar? Oh yes! Of course, we are far from the traditional guitar hero here, but in my opinion, there is something heroic in wanting to interpret such bare music, so pure in its economy and its search for the essential sound, on an instrument so associated with spectacular virtuosity and expressionist thunder.
In any case, the gamble is entirely successful! Guitarist Günter Herbig, who made the arrangements himself, has brilliantly transferred the mystical minimalism of the Estonian composer to the reverberating sound world of the electric guitar. Played with angelic sweetness, Herbig’s Gretsch White Falcon captures the essence of Pärt’s sonic purity while offering a little extra soul in the form of an unusually inhabited and embraced sound space. The sound of the electric instrument, gently caressed rather than pinched by its master, thus becomes a kind of original synthesis between the organic and the electromagnetic. We enter a sound dimension adapted to one thing only: beneficial contemplation, a refuge from the horrors of the world.
Wherever I Go… is a real lesson in “zenitude” by one of the great poets of the contemporary electric guitar. Wherever you go, the music on this album, and especially its spirit, will stay with you for a long time.
