This piece of music is apparently a 14th century motet in Latin by an unknown composer, and was the basis of the main theme used by Eduard Artemiev for Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker. The above painting is The Annunciation by Fra Angelico, which has a similar austere beauty as does the music.
According to Artemiev, with the desired piece Tarkovsky was looking for some sense of both West and East, but somehow as distinct rather than fused into one spirit; and after agreeing to the Italian motet as the foundation, it apparently took a lot of coaxing by Tarkovsky to attain to the mysterious, haunting final realisation, as an earlier version by Artemiev is, let’s say a lot more linear and far less interesting. Tarkovsky was looking for something a lot deeper and more elusive than simply a Western piece played by Eastern instruments, which is kind of what Artemiev first came up with! The masterpiece Artemiev did finally achieve, titled Meditation, is used repeatedly through Stalker:
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