Chad Smith, Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has long nurtured the desire to commission a new work by Arvo Pärt. When the Los Angeles Philharmonic submitted this idea to Arvo Pärt in February 2007, the suggestion came at precisely the right moment. Pärt was working at that time with an ancient canon in Church Slavonic containing a prayer to a guardian angel - the connection to 'Los Angeles' was irresistible.

Pärt was further inspired to take the commission by the idea of see...