John
Tavener’s is a real success story of contemporary music.
He is a composer who has reached a mass public, writing,
in a tonal idiom, large–scale works which, perhaps remarkably,
have been performed the world over. Since his beautiful
a
cappella work
Song for Athene was
performed at Princess Diana’s funeral, in 1997, his star
has risen and continues to rise. He must be one of the
most
commissioned contemporary composers at work today.
It
wasn’t always so. He started as a die-hard avant-gardist
with works such as
The Whale (performed at the first
concert given by the London Sinfonietta),
In Alium (commissioned
for the 1968 BBC Promenade concerts – didn’t Edward Greenfield,
in the Guardian, describe it as a kind of musical love–in?)
and the
Celtic Requiem. His conversion to the Orthodox
Church in 1977 brought about the major change in his work – moving
from modernism towards the huge canvases, built in tonality,
utilizing large forms and carrying a very religious message.
It was probably his work for cello and string orchestra,
The
Protecting Veil,
commissioned for the 1989 Proms,
which really put him on the musical map. It has since been
recorded over half a dozen times. Very beautiful and meditative
all this music might have been but it was also very restricting.
Each new work seemed so similar to the previous one that
my interest started to wane. But then, in 2000, Tavener
started looking elsewhere for his inspiration and a new
interest appeared in his work. To be sure, there’s still
the gigantic choral pieces –
The Veil of the Temple (2003) – a
seven-hour vigil composed to be performed in the candlelit
Temple Church – and
The Beautiful Names (2007) – a
setting of the 99 Names for Allah from the Qu’ran – but
the language isn’t that of the heavily perfumed Orthodox
Church. Because of this, his music has once again become
interesting and fresh.
Tavener
has written unaccompanied choral music throughout his career
and here are some fine examples of this work – two with
an important part for organ.
Ex Maria Virgine is a kind of
Ceremony
of Carols in that it sets both well known and less
well known texts concerned with Christmas. It’s a big piece
and although there are some stunning moments, it’s at least
ten minutes too long for its material. But I welcome it
for it is so different to those Orthodox pieces. It seems
to have more of a sense of itself as a work of music, than
as a work of the Orthodox Church. It’s interesting that
within its structure I noticed the undeniable influence
of both Elgar and Vaughan Williams in the choral textures.
Ex
Maria Virgine was commissioned by the performers on
this disk and this recording was made some five months
before they gave the premi
ère. Their committed advocacy is astonishing for this music had neither
been tried out in public nor had the performers had the
chance to receive feedback from an audience.
The
rest of the recital is made up of Tavener’s smaller pieces
and they show the best of him. There’s a lot of diversity
in these miniatures. For the first time in a long time,
Tavener has written some bold music, strong and purposeful.
The only backward step is
O Thou Gentle Light which
reverts to the Orthodox sound once again. The best is kept
for last:
Angels is a tumultuous paean of joyful
singing over a tremolando organ accompaniment. Fabulous
stuff indeed.
Tavener
is not the towering genius of British music so many would
have us believe but he is, at least, trying to meet the
listening public and give them music to which they can
relate and enjoy. What is really missing in these pieces
is that sense of variety, and fun, which comes so easily
to someone such as John Rutter. In the long run, despite
what I have written about Tavener’s accessibility, I believe
that what Tavener will be remembered for are those exciting,
and quite startlingly brilliant, early pieces. They, more
than all his later works, display a truly individual voice
and show a questing compositional mind.
I
enjoyed this disk, despite my reservations, and hope that
it will make many friends for contemporary music and will
encourage people to delve further into the rich seam of
modern composition. The recording has captured the glorious
acoustic of Norwich Cathedral superbly, and shows the voices
and organ in a lovely perspective within that magnificent
building. The booklet contains a good note and full texts
of all the works performed. Now that Timothy Brown has
given us this disk, perhaps he might be encouraged to give
us some recordings of choral music by his brother Christopher – an
important composer of choral music who is far too little
known.
Bob Briggs
see also review by Brian Wilson