Release Date: 01 January 2000
Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 636943438824
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: TAVENER
Description
John Tavener (b. 1944)The Protecting Veil;In AliumJohn Tavener studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Sir LennoxBerkeley and David Lumsdaine. In 1968 his dramatic cantata The Whale tookits audience by storm and led to his music being recorded on The Beatles' Applelabel. Since that time Tavener has continued to show an originality of conceptand an intensely personal idiom, making his a voice quite separate from thoseof his contemporaries. Over the years, the contemplative side of his nature hasled him in more spiritual directions and his commitment to the Russian OrthodoxChurch, which he joined in 1977, is now evident in all his work.In Alium, scored for soprano solo, string orchestra, organ, Hammond organ, piano,percussion (gongs, tam-tams and bells) and four-track tape, was conceivedespecially for performance in the symmetrical surroundings of London's RoyalAlbert Hall, so that the attention of the listener is divided equally betweenthe platform and the four loudspeakers, between the live and the recordedsounds. The work was stimulated by ?and its ethos is reflected in thefollowing lines from a poem by Charles Peguy, La Porche de myst?¿re de ladeuxi?¿me Vertu:L'Esperance est une petite fille de rien du tout, Qui est venue au monde le jour deNo?½l de l'annee derni?¿re.C'est elle, cette petite qui entraine tout. Car la foi ne voit que ce qui est.Et elle elle voit ce qui sera.La charit?n'aime que ce qui est.Et elle elle aime ce qui sera.(Hope is a little girl of no importance, Who came into the world on Christmas Day last year.It is she, this little one who carries along all. Because faith sees only what is.And she sees what will be.Charity loves only what is.And she loves what will be.')These words are sung in the first part of the work and, in conjunctionwith the Latin text Spem in alium nunquam habui, in the final section;the two central motets are settings of the words Spem and In alium respectively.The music is essentially 'soft and sugary' and the 'churchy' harmonies are useddeliberately for their innate quality of sound and should not be regarded asbeing in inverted commas. In the first section, the strings (with gongs andtam-tams in rhythmic canon) support and harmonize the soprano's slow, wide-rangingmelodic line, while the Hammond organ interjects laughter-like scatters ofnotes over a low-?¡lying counterpoint and the piano 'improvises' a series ofsporadic gestures, becoming ever more 'continuous and frenetic'. This textureis punctuated throughout by a section of recorded sounds: the noise of childrenplaying, a flamboyant piano solo (the 'childhood' theme) and lastly achildren's hymn, which, like the piano solo, arises from the closely-knitmaterial which forms the basis of the work as a whole. Towards the end of thesection, these three separate sounds are mixed and electronically distorted,until the soprano reaches the end of her solo. At this point, the recordedvoice of the soprano (singing against herself in four parts) overlaps to m
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
