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At a time of unprecedented cultural and musical diversity,
John Tavener has remained a consistent and powerfully unique voice. Born in
1944, he first came to public attention in 1968 with the premiere of his
oratorio The Whale at the inaugural concert of the London Sinfonietta. The
work came to the attention of The Beatles and was subsequently recorded on
their Apple label.
Although Tavener’s avant-garde style of the Seventies contrasts with
the contemplative beauty of his works for which he is best known, the seeds
of the language he would later adopt were already in evidence. His use of
children’s voices in his first Proms commission, In Alium (1968) and
the Celtic Requiem (1969) demonstrate a fascination with childish innocence
which permeates his entire oeuvre. His early compositions, notably Thér¬se
(1973) commissioned by the Royal Opera House and A Gentle Spirit (1977)
after the short story by Dostoyevsky, showed that spirituality and mysticism
were to be his primary sources of inspiration.
Throughout the seventies Tavener became increasingly uncomfortable with what
he saw as an over-intellectualization of western classical music. His
conversion to the Orthodox Church in 1977 resulted from his growing
conviction that Eastern traditions retained a primordial essence that the
West had lost. From this time, his musical language moved towards a
self-abnegating ethereal beauty, often reminiscent of the music of the
Eastern Orthodox church. Works such as Funeral Ikos (1981), The Lamb (1982),
Ikon of Light (1984) and the large-scale choral work Resurrection (1989)
date from this period. It was in 1989 that Tavener once again came firmly
into the limelight, when the Proms premiere of The Protecting Veil
introduced his music to a new audience. The opera Mary of Egypt, which
premiered at the 1992 Aldeburgh Festival, marked the start of his continuing
collaboration with soprano Patricia Rozario. The same year, a major
documentary, ‘Glimpses of Paradise’ was broadcast on bbc2. His
50th birthday year was marked in 1994 by the bbc’s Ikons Festival, as
well as another major Proms commission – The Apocalypse. In 1997, the
performance of Song for Athene at the close of Princess Diana’s
funeral showed that the profound effect of his music reached far beyond just
the concert-going public and led to a surge of press interest, including
another documentary on London Weekend Television’s South Bank Show.
The huge interest in Tavener showed no signs of abating; the premiere of A
New Beginning played out the final minutes of 1999 in London’s
Millennium Dome; on 4 January 2000, Fall and Resurrection was premiered at
St Paul’s Cathedral, broadcast on both television and radio; he
received a Knighthood in the Millennium Honours List, and later the same
year, London’s South Bank Centre presented
a major festival of his music. The increase in the number of overseas
commissions, notably Lamentations and Praises (2000) for the San
Francisco-based Chanticleer (whose recording of the work secured for Tavener
the Grammy award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in 2003) and
Ikon of Eros (2001) for the Minnesota Orchestra gave testament to the fact
that Tavener’s music was speaking to an international audience.
Around this time, it became clear that Tavener was beginning
to move in a significant new direction, as Orthodox sources began to give
way to influences from other cultures. This change was perhaps foreshadowed
by the use of Hindu rhythms in works like Samaveda (1997) and Song of the
Cosmos (2000), and his use of instruments such as the Tibetan Temple Bowl in
many works of the 1990s. Tavener says that it was while he was writing the
eight-hour epic The Veil of the Temple (2001), that he found that he needed
to look further than just Orthodoxy to express his message. He was led to
look for inspiration from alternative sources by his interest in the
universalist philosophy of the late Swiss metaphysician Fritjhof Schuon,
which embraces all great religious traditions. This change in direction is
manifest in works written since 2001 – notably The Veil of the Temple,
Lament for Jerusalem (which uses both Christian and Islamic texts), and Hymn
of Dawn, based on Hindu, Sufi, Christian and Jewish texts, as well as the
music of the American Indians.
David McCleery
Selected works (since 1984): Ikon of Light for mixed
choir and strings (1984), Eis Thanaton for soprano, bass and orchestra
(1986), Akathist of Thanksgiving for two altos, two countertenors, tenor,
baritone, two basses, mixed choir, timpani, tubular bells (organ) and
strings (1987), Prayer (for Szymanowski) for bass and piano (1987), Song for
Ileana for solo flute (1988), The Protecting Veil for cello and strings
(1988), Ikon of St Seraphim for two violins, countertenor, four basses,
mixed choir and orchestra (1988), Ikon of the Crucifixion for soprano,
countertenor, baritone, bass, mixed choir and orchestra (1988), Let Not the
Prince Be Silent for two antiphonal choirs (1988), Resurrection for soprano,
countertenor, bass, actors, mixed choir, male choir and orchestra (1989),
The Repentant Thief for clarinet and orchestra (1990), Eternal Memory for
cello and strings (1991), Mary of Egypt for soprano, alto, bass, children
choirs, mixed choir and orchestra (1991), Apocalypse for treble, soprano,
contralto, seven countertenors, tenor, bass, boys’ and male voi-ces
and orchestra in three spatial groups (1993), Theophany for orchestra
(1993), The World is Burning for mixed choir and tam-tam (1993), The
Myrrh-Bearer for viola, choir and percussion (1993), Akhmatova Songs for
soprano and cello (1993), Agraphon for soprano and orchestra (1994),
Let’s Begin Again for mixed choir and orchestra (1995), Svyati for
cello and mixed choir (1995), Petra for singing string ensemble (1996),
Vlepondas for cello, soprano and baritone (1996), Fall and Resurrection for
soprano, countertenor, baritone, mixed choir and orchestra (1997), The Last
Discourse for amplified double bass, soprano, bass and mixed choir (1997),
My Gaze Is Ever upon You for violin and tape (1997), Lament for
Constantinople for baritone and alto flute (1997), Mystagogia for orchestra
(1998), Iero Oniro (A Sacred Dream) for soprano, instrumental ensemble and
tape (1999), Total Eclipse for saxophone, treble, tenor, countertenor, mixed
choir and orchestra (1999), The Bridegroom for four female voices and string
quartet (1999), Prayer of the Heart for voice, Tibetian bowls, monastery
bell and string quartet (1999), Ikon of Eros for violin, soprano, mixed
choir and orchestra (2000), Mahamatar for low female voice, boys’
choir, tubular bells and strings (2000), Song of the Cosmos for soprano,
baritone, mixed choir and orchestra (2000), The Fool for unaccompanied mixed
choir (2000), Lamentations and Praises for male choir and orchestra (2000),
Lament for Jerusalem for soprano, countertenor, mixed choir and orchestra
(2002), The Veil of the Temple for soprano, mixed choir, boys’ choir
and orchestra (2002), Butterfly Dreams for unaccompanied mixed choir (2002),
Maya Atma for violin, soprano and percussion (2002), Supernatu-ral Songs for
countertenor or mezzo-soprano and orchestra (2003).
The Bridegroom
The end of our lives is also our spiritual end if we join in rejecting The
Bridegroom – the Light and the Life of the world.
Such is the theme of The Bridegroom, at once ecstatic, full of compunction,
and radiant. The music should be almost unbearable in its ecstatic light,
its endless melodic arch, its intense compunction… The quartet of
strings represents Christ the Bridegroom and the female voices the people in
the world full of that longing which is
a kind of Divine eros.
The Bridegroom should be performed in a large building with a resonant
acoustics, preferably a church, with the voices at a far distance from the
string quartet.
The Bridegroom was written for Anonymous 4 and the Chilingirian String
Quartet who gave its first performance, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in
London on 17 October 2000.
John Tavener
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