COMPOSERS: Tavener
LABELS: RCA Red Seal
ALBUM TITLE: Tavener - The Veil of the Temple
WORKS: The Veil of the Temple
PERFORMER: Patricia RozarioHolst Singers, Temple Church ChoirStephen Layton
CATALOGUE NO: 82876 66154 2
The Veil of the Temple is a
condensed, concert version of John
Tavener’s immense All-Night Vigil.
In the church calendar it’s the grand
rite that follows the progression
from the darkness of night to the
dawn of Easter Day, paralleling
it with Christ’s suffering, death
and resurrection. So, despite its
enormous length, it’s a ritual with
a sustained, often very moving narrative thread. Tavener’s setting
is far from operatic – though there
is a touching reference to Wagner’s
Tristan at the darkest point in the
Passion story. It is, as one would
expect from this composer’s music,
highly ritualised, with much of the
music firmly anchored to sustained,
primal drone bass. But the way
in which Tavener manages to
combine the timeless, primordial
element with a compelling sense
of underlying progress is masterly.
Broadly speaking the means to this
end are very simple: the drone bass
slowly rises, the harmonies become
richer, the choral forces grow in
size, until the apocalyptic C major
fortissimo, enriched by massed brass
and timpani, of the culminating
New Jerusalem Hymn.
The performance is
outstanding, capturing the
range of colour and expression in Tavener’s highly original choral
writing to magical effect, while
the recording is finely responsive
to the atmosphere of London’s
Temple Church, with only a slight loss of clarity in the climactic
Hymn. Warmly recommended.
Stephen Johnson