Essential Tavener
"I see music as 'a window of sound' on to the divine world," said John Tavener (1944-2013), whose music, in common with that of other composers of 'holy minimalism', is largely informed by his faith (he was received into the Russian Orthodox Church in 1977); theology and liturgical traditions are a major influence on his work.
Read more…Like Arvo Pärt and Henryk Górecki, Tavener's early musical training was in the fashionable white hot furnace of the avant-garde in the 1960s. While at London's Royal Academy of Music, his studies with Lennox Berkeley led to exposure to the music of Boulez, Ligeti and Messiaen; at the same time, he grew friendly with The Beatles, and John Lennon invited Tavener to record his dizzying psychedelic musical melange 'The Whale' on the Beatles' Apple label, which brought impressive early recognition.
But Tavener was dissatisfied with the avant-garde and, like Pärt and Górecki, sought a purer, more uncluttered style. His journey into Eastern Christianity, and from there to Sufism and Hinduism, led to the creation of his most significant works, including 'The Lamb', 'Resurrection', 'The Protecting Veil', 'Song for Athene' and 'The Veil of the Temple'. In these works, liturgical chant is layered with clean harmonies and eastern rhythms, creating profound music of haunting spirituality, whose roots lie in the ancient chants of the Orthodox Church but which is also startlingly contemporary.
Tavener's music has a mesmeric simplicity and ethereal spaciousness in which the smallest gestures have great significance ('The Lamb', for example, comprises just seven notes, ingeniously crafted into a work of intoxicating beauty). But it is music which demands attentive listening: as each simple melodic line opens up, one has the sense of something far greater stretching into the infinite, and of time suspended, blissful and meditative.
[Due to geo-blocking restrictions, some tracks might be unavailable in certain territories.]