Discovered Tavener 25 years ago and it never left me. The Akhmatova songs are what got me into his music. The Protecting Veil, Depart in Peace, Many Years, The World, Tears of the Angel… so many masterpieces to me. Bad composer?
I totally agree with you. Every time life is getting troubled I return to John Tavener. His music gives peace to troubled hearts and his music comes from the heart. Let some of his works last for hours. Why not? It is not musical fast food!
So it looks like a lot of people detest John Tavener's music. I can completely accept it. I'll probably be ridiculed for this, but I really like his music. To me, the celestial ambiance and simplicity is what sells it for me. I especially love his Funeral Canticle, Lamentations and Praises, and The Last Sleep of the Virgin. They have that church vibe, not gonna lie. I totally dig the music. Again, I'll probably be ridiculed for this. But at least I'm being honest here.
I also like Lamentations and Praises. Sometimes I'd think about a fusion of that stuff with the Messiaen and Stravinsky styles. Probably, it would have more musical "meat".
I agree. I adore Tavener. Even most of his longer works. I love Total Eclipse and have used excerpts of Funeral Canticle many times for my final rest in my yoga classes.
Truthfully, I cannot understand it. John Taverners music borders on the sublime. But tbh, not everyone is willing to be touched this deeply, this personally..people want entertainment, not deep heartfelt introspection. I find that people who love Taverner are acquainted with loss and sorrow. Those who have not contemplated eternity will not enjoy Taverner. The day ends, shades lengthen, and the daylight fades into night. Taverner is the poet of the coming night, and night comes for us all.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Perhaps taking into consideration that that the elderly, the visually impaired and those with shaking hands due to Parkinson's and other disorders of the elderly find great comfort in this beautiful music. It should give you some insight into how this unintentional slight to a great a composer could happen. I would not ascribe to carelessness or want of literacy a fault that may well be no more than a human reaction to the passing of time. The gorgeous icons depicted in many of the videos with is composer's works are no less beautiful for the wear and tear of the passing centuries, are they? The sense of hearing, science tells us, is the last to leave. Perhaps we hear the better for the dimming of other senses. It's rather a blessing, in fact, that in the absence of tact and want of warmth we cannot see the expressions that meet the stumbling aged foot, the harmless old and palsied hand. One need not be old to appreciate this lovely music, but it does require a delicacy of feeling much wanting in these days. Pity.
@@astrophilsydenham8319 I suppose taking into consideration that John Tavenor"s ( I believe I spelled it correctly this time) music extoll's the beauty of reverent humility, gentleness, piety and a kind of sweetness born of patient suffering, that this gentleman would not find it enjoyable. And indeed it isn't for everyone. I love the music of Elgar, Ola Gjello, Max Richter, Dan Forrest, etc. and not everyone does. I can however recognize greatness even if the esthetic of a particular style is not to my taste. Have lovely evening, from central Texas!🌸🪷🌷
Your comment about the idea and conception of the work being of more interest than the actual music is spot on. Many current composers know this and milk it for what it's worth. In pop music "criticism" it is pretty much all that is critiqued. What the songwriter/composer was living through, and what inspired them passes for craft.
Not fair; when he is good, he is very good, but when he is bad he is very bad. He wrote too much, for sure, too many oratorio-type overblown compositions, but some of his shorter works are wonderful. Check out his Ikon of light too, and his Schuon lieder. Even , if you are in the mood for it, The veil of the temple. As for the latter, I would love to have been at the performance of it in the Temple church, all 5 or so hours of it. And The last sleep of the Virgin is magical.
One (probably the only one) bright side of Tavener’s music is the short choral work “The Lamb”, which is gorgeous. I mainly got hooked on it because of its use in the Italian film “The Great Beauty”, it worked very well within that film.
I'm a choral conductor and I can confirm that more singers loathe Tavener than like him. The earlier, shorter pieces are effective in their own way. The longer pieces are a trial because a) you need a healthy collection of third basses, and if you're not in Russia, they are the hardest voices to find, b) these basses are often left droning away under the stave for minutes on end, and when the music hits a loud dynamic, Tavener expects the them to be able to sing their subterranean notes as loud as the first sopranos belting it out above the stave, c) Tavener's reliance on mirror canons and long stretches of parallel harmony are boring, d) many passages are badly written for the voice and finding places to breathe is always an issue, e) the faux-spirituality is frankly, embarrassing. Some of the more ambitious pieces, like Total Eclipse (remember that, with John Harle screeching away) are just plain awful. If there is a Tavener 'masterpiece' then I would say it's the Akhmatova Requiem, which is barely known.
Yes, Akhmatova Requiem was better than other more known pieces. I like Akhmatova Requiem, Celtic Requiem, The Whale. I understand your points. That's why I prefer, for example, Messiaen.
The irony is that Akhmatova Requiem was a flop at its first performance, at a BBC Prom concert. It was preceded by a Beethoven symphony, and according to Tavener's biographer Geoffrey Haydon, this "brought out the Beethoven crowd" and a number of seats remained empty after the interval. Moreover, when the Requiem began and the rest of the audience realised they were about to sit through "a gloomy modern epic," they began a slow trickle towards the exits. Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who was conducting, faced trouble with the authorities when returning to Russia afterwards: apparently his luggage was searched, the concert programme (including the text of the work, by Anna Akhmatova) was confiscated and Rozhdestvensky was accused of trying to bring forbidden literature into the country - Akhmatova's poetry had been banned in the Soviet Union - and he was released on the technicality that the literature was a concert programme and not an actual book by Akhmatova! The work was, however, greatly appreciated by the owner of an hotel in Greece that Tavener often visited at the time - he had a copy of the tape recording and of the score, which he couldn't understand but felt was a perfect match for the words and believed that Tavener's setting could serve as a battle cry for the Orthodox faith, as some of Akhmatova's poems did.
1. John Tavener's music sounds absolutely magnificent after spending a few hours at the tavern and a few minutes on the john. 2. Dave quoting Tavener at 14:22-36: "My music is moving closer and closer to the defining center of God which has no physical substance and therefore, as I come closer to this point, my music will eventually have no physical existence, no measurable sound at all." 3. In other words, Tavener will have arrived where John Cage had gone before in his 4'33", composed in 1952 as a duration of silence for any instrument or combination of instruments.
Minas Tirith! That whole bit, and the story about the organ, were hilarious. Can someone explain the horse-neighing at "Bruckner"? I've come across this a few times and have wondered where it started.
Serendipitously, I must note that the Wikipedia entry for Angus Scrimm (not his birth name) who played The Tall Man in the Phantasm franchise, states that he started as a journalist and that he wrote lots of liner notes for LPs/CDs and apparently "won a Grammy (credited as Rory Guy, as were his early film roles) for his liner notes to the 1974 album Korngold: The Classic Erich Wolfgang Korngold."
You mentioned Arvo Pärt, who appears to draw from the same fount of spiritualism as Tavener, particularly in his later works. I see little of him nowadays as well, to be honest, and he used to be everywhere for a while. Same with Gorécki's Third Symphony. Do you think that brand of musical spiritualism has died out, or at least diminished in importance?
Tavener, Part and Gorecki are often mentioned in the same breath, and have shared CDs, as if they are part of some 'school' of sacred minimalism or some such thing. In fact, their music is quite different. Of the three, I would argue that Part is the most distinctive, insofar as he developed a system that he uses consistently, as did Messiaen. Gorecki favours the kind of stasis that would make even Beethoven blush; his work is rather dull although his choral adaptations of folk songs from his native Poland are worth hearing. A music critic once barbed Tavener by pointing out that Part was born Orthodox whilst Tavener was merely a convert; it could also be observed that while Tavener tended to proselytise through his music, Part keeps his faith separate from his music - although he has composed a great deal of religious work, he tends not to discuss religion. Part was introduced to Tavener in person in the 80s, but apparently not much came of their meeting: at the time, Part spoke very little English and on the day in question was suffering from toothache so couldn't speak much anyway, so his opinion of Tavener's work remained known only to himself. Asked about Part in the late 90s, Tavener remarked that he liked Part's music very much but felt that there was truly only one thing they had in common: a passion for classic cars....
@@markswintonorganist8227 I went to a concert recently where Gorecki's SQ 3 was performed. I cheered wildly at the end mostly in recognition of the boredom the players had to endure performing it. Also seems completely derivative of Shostakovich 15.
@@rexiioper6920 I have among my friends a handful of former Westminster Abbey choristers who sang in the 50th birthday festival of Tavener's music in 1994. One of them summed up the experience rather more pithily than the music itself: "Bloody Akathist of bloody Thanksgiving," referring to having not only had to perform the work in concert but then having to return to the Abbey that same night to re-record it so that the commercial CD could be produced with relatively little audience noise and any errors ironed out. Years later, some performers of Tavener's "Veil of the Temple," on a break between sections in which they were involved, were heard remarking: "this feels more like a rehearsal than a performance." As I've remarked elsewhere, any power that Tavener has (likewise Pärt and Gorecki) lies in short pieces, which neither outstay their welcome nor enforce a mighty endurance test on those performing them.
One of the GREAT tragedies of 21st Century musical history is that the musically-challenged and consistently BORING John Tavener is very often confused - especially in the supposedly "critical" musical press! - with the VERY GREAT Renaissance composer, John Tave(r)ner (also English, c. 1490-1545). The two names being so very close in spelling is quite suggestive, wouldn't you say? Nothing like a very well-known, revered and respected quantity to mask your own ineptitude! Mike D.
I have the Protecting Veil - I've played it (not on an instrument, I fear) - I can't remember a note of it. I did on the other hand like, for a while, his Last Sleep of the Virgin, in various forms. Something to be played just now and then - OK, more "then" - when one's in that sort of mood. I don't remember his Athenae piece, whatever it was called, since I did not linger long over the funeral recording; did it come before or after the mawkish Elton John piece? There's much to be said for playing only old music at funerals - a look at the late Queen Mother's face exposed the folly of trying to make the traditional contemporary: she was probably expecting a chorus-line of dancing boys to prance through the Abbey. She looked as if she had steeled herself for the eventuality.
This talk made me curious about what you think of the minimal music composers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich or Michael Nyman. They made some interesting shorter pieces or film music. But are their larger works interesting enough for you to talk about?
As you said Taverner is some sort of Arvo Pärt without his talent. And I agree, but that takes me to ask if you have considered the idea of an Arvo Pärt video. I love his music and I love your analysis, so it will be just great!!
He's not interesting enough to make me sound bitter. Your characterization is simply a function of your disagreeing with my opinion. I'm actually very happy about my disgust with him, and I think the video reveals THAT very clearly.
@@DavesClassicalGuide no, you really are a bitter and cynical person. this video is just a scramble of you projecting your own misery of not being talented enough to do anything meaningful onto other person. but whatever makes you and your lifetime work, that's never even made it out of the abbys of oblivion, feel relevant to anyone for even a split of a second
Minor point but he was Russian Orthodox I think. Among the somewhat longer works the Akathist of Thanksgiving was always a pleasant listen every few years or so, but on the whole his output is pretty insufferable, and if you read anything of his commentary about his own life and work, oh brother.
Naxos put out a disc with "The Protecting Veil" and "In Alium," setting 'new age' Tavener against 'early' Tavener. That was quite a revelation and a clever bit of programming!
Tavener's stuff was a mystery to me; I don't know what projected it to the public consciousness for a little while, but it wasn't the Emperor's New Clothes, it wasn't even the Emperor sans New Clothes! Messiaen is constantly "spiritual" too, as well as Rautavaara, so that's not the problem... apparently Tavener was the problem. Alas. And the Myrow/Seagrave score to PHANTASM is more interesting than anything I've ever heard from Tavener.
They're performing a Tavener piece for SQ/piano/soprano/tibetan bowls at a famous church in London tonight; cheap tickets; glad I found this video in advance.
I remember reading an article about John Tavener in the Observer colour supplement. I forget who the journalist interviewing him was but remember the conclusion went something like, "I liked him. This is a shame because I regret I cannot say the same for his music." Not long before reading this, I remember getting all excited about the premiere of a new work of his "The Apocalypse", an oratorio about four hours long. I quite enjoyed the first ten minutes before realising that this contained all the music. This was just repeated about thirty times, possibly with different words. Then there was the "Note of Eternity", the D above Middle C, played by a string quartet as a pedal throughout the whole damned thing (sounds very much like the April Fool review, but it was definitely not an F#). Couldn't take Tavener seriously after that.
I think just the opposite - I find his short pieces to be weak and his long pieces to be haunting, mystical and powerful. It's a pity that 'Ultimos Ritos' has not been recorded.
Agreed. There are two movements from it - "Nomine Jesu" and "Coplas" - on his second album for Apple records, alongside the "Celtic Requiem". I have the score of the whole thing, and I'd love someone to record it.
I totally agree about Ultimos Ritos. I’ve heard it live twice, both times in Westminster Cathedral. It a wonderfully sprawling work taking in Taverner’s personal take on all twelve chromatic notes in the second movement with the basses and then the apocalyptic trumpets “from a very high gallery”. At the second performance, some years later I was concerned it might feel dated, and to some extent it does, but the overall impact is greater. I have a copy of the score, one of my treasured possessions.
i bought his best of and i only liked The Lamb and The Protecting Veil. Actually i bought it just for the björk piece he arranged which i do absolutely love.
Is Tavener is as bad as you say? It may say something that I sang in a complete performance of The Veil of the Temple but remember nothing at all about the music. By way of contrast, I vividly recall emotional and musical experiences from many epic works that twenty years in The Dessoff Choirs brought my way, from Bach’s B Minor Mass (once with a period orchestra and another time in a Hebrew translation) to Belshazzar’s Feast at Royal Festival Hall to everything by Britten big and small, especially the War Requiem for Lorin Maazel’s farewell concerts with the NY Philharmonic. What I do remember about Veil of the Temple is that it started at 10:30 pm and ended at 5:30 am at which time the various choruses, including a children’s choir flown in from the UK, holding candles and incense and humming a raga, led the audience out into the plaza at Lincoln Center where everyone was treated to bagels and coffee. To accommodate the all-night audience at Avery Fisher Hall (now David Geffen Hall), all the seats in the orchestra level were removed and replaced by cushions so that people could nap on the floor. At various times during the night the multiple choirs sang not only on the main stage but popped up in different balconies and tiers around the concert hall. We also received ahead of time a flyer titled “Sleep Deprivation & Performance Effectiveness - preparing for The Veil of the Temple” advising us to sleep 4 to 8 hours the afternoon before the performance, suggesting caffeine tablets during the performance, and counseling us not to drive afterwards.
Hi David, I find your observation that people and record lables buy records just because someone is famous without listening to the work very similar to what happens in the other arts. Scribbles from their childhood by famous artists are sold for huge sums, a lot of art work is not even done by the artist but the 'story' of the artist and the art work are more important than the work itself.
"...pretentious, monotonous essays in pseudo-spirituality" - I do get your point for this precise case, but weren't those the words uttered and published by numerous contemporaries for ones like Bruckner, to name but the most notorious? My grandma, in her love with Mozart, and reverent of Bach, was convinced the Br(rrr)uckner guy was crap. Time changes some perspectives... not all, of course.
I remember that the Beatles' Apple label was announced, when it started, as planning to issue recordings of contemporary music. The only LP they issued was Taverner's "The Whale". I listened to a few minutes of the work and lost interest. As I write this, I am listening to the only Teverner piece I own "Mandelion" (more fake Greek) on a double CD of organ music on Nimbus which I bought for one of the other composers'' works. Ten minutes in, and I am still waiting for something to happen. I remember also, the publicity for Tavener, featuring photos of him posing piously in front of a stained-glass window.. "Holier than thou", indeed. -
Apple also released his "Celtic Requiem," "Coplas Españolas" and "Nomine Jesu" on another LP, though it was not as popular in the day. Even in those early works, you can detect the kind of non-developmental stasis that would permeate his later works - it's just in a different idiom. Of course, in those days he had (according to John Rutter and David Lumsdaine) difficulty getting his ideas down onto paper....
Apple also released Celtic Requiem as well (but I think only in the UK). I’m not a fan of either works, though I do quite enjoy his later stuff - and I generally dislike classical music.
I have a CD which contains Kancheli's Styx and Tavener's The Myrrh-Bearer played by Rysanov, Sirmais/Liepaja SO. I love Kancheli's Stxy, which is one of my favorite "contemporary" piece but I listened to the Tavener only once and never again.
What I am getting at is Tavener is like Sorabji but with none of the qualities that made Sorabji a great composer. Also, could you please do a talk on Sorabji? He is a favorite of mine and is severely underrated.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Do you mind informing me on the video which contains this? I admittedly am not an avid follower of the channel but I can not seem to find anything on Sorabji.
Hey David how about Herbert Howells Piano Cencertos. I recently started listening to Tavener again and then along comes your presentation. It takes a long time for English composers to be revived. Elgar was very out of fashion for a while. 2 or 3 of Tavener's pieces will stay known. The Lamb has millions of views on TH-cam. Tipoett is making a slight comeback. Bax isn't played live but cds/downloads sell. Tavener has a niche. He is someone who is still sung. I can think of other composers who died in the last few years whose music has vanished. Rhozdestvensky reverred the Protecting Veil and recorded it with the LSO.
I remember seeing a documentary on Tavener sometime in the 1990s in which he wandered piously around various monastic surroundings looking supremely spiritual and self consciously un-worldly. The whole thing was so pretentious and pompous I ignored his music until a couple of years ago when I heard one of his pieces I discovered I did enjoy.
Attended the premiere of Tavener's last work Flood of Beauty in 2015. This is what I remembered, "...particularly vexatious and self-indulgent, almost drowning within in its own suffocating froth. By now, some audience members were seen leaving the hall."
I remember listening that work Live, in the premiere. Two months ago I listened it again. It is funny, because i think as a composer he wanted to be clear as much as possible with the voices. But the constant Soprano and Tenor singing together against those massive number of instruments was against the clarity of the syllables that they were singing. Certainly, I am not a fan of Flood of Beauty.
The 10,000th fastest sprinter in the world sprints faster than most of us sitting staring at our phones. Doesn't mean the world needs him/ her to sprint.
I subscribe to the Anna Russell Theory of modern music. With modern music, you never know if the composer has reached new heights, or if he is just trying to put one over on you.
I only listened the music of the movie The Great Beauty, that one is the only one I know. And I like that song. I will listen the other ones later, so I can have a better opinion.
Hi Dave. A suggestion... these days we're celebrating John Williams 90th birthday. And even if you're one of his detractors, I think that his influence in importance in music for movies in the past 50 years at least can't be underestimated. So how about dedicating a talk to him?
First, I don't have permission to play and samples. Second, I don't think is influence has mattered one bit. I don't think he's had any influence at all. Don't get me wrong, I believe he is an excellent composer for films, and I enjoy a lot of his work, but he has built his career entirely on that of his illustrious predecessors, so in that sense he is irrelevant. I also don't celebrate birthdays or anniversaries any more than I do obituaries. I don't find such things compelling justification, musically speaking. I hope he has a happy birthday. If and when I have the right to use his music in a video, I will happily do a talk about it.
@@DavesClassicalGuide You've heard John Williams's classical works, I assume. I'd be AMAZED if you have not. Williams specializes in crafting melodies that fit adventure, family and dramatic movies, yes. You know that he has both a classical and jazz background, and was probably the best conductor the Boston Pops has ever seen. Not to mention his other astounding musical abilities... I mention all this because I think when looking at how influential or noteworthy any composer is, film, classical, both, or otherwise, one should take into account their overall level of musicianship when looking at this subject. We all know (primarily) where Williams gets his inspiration. We all know how closely many of his themes mirror other preexisting themes in film and classical music. But yes, each of his themes are truly his own. In my experience, whenever I have tried to compose something more avant-garde-ish that lacks a clear melody, even just one motif or discernable idea, regardless of what is happening in the other aspects of the piece, I'm never satisfied with the piece. The same could be said for all other music that is similar in this regard. Serialism (except in the case of, say Alban Berg), is particularly lifeless, and to me, utterly devoid of any real meaning. So I don't value music of this sort very highly at all. John Williams is ten times the composer of most anyone alive today. The single biggest reason I began playing brass instruments was because of the film music of John Williams. There are not many like him, who are truly on his level. "Tunesmiths" as I have heard the term from contemporary composers/professors, are also quite often superior musicians when compared to avant-garde composers. In fact, this is often ridiculously the case. (Most modern film composers are not quite as good of course, but this has more to do with the evolving state of things like the process of movie making...) I would hope that many people love Stravinsky, Scriabin, Christopher Young, Lalo Schifrin, Ravel, etc. These composers use dissonance in a dramatic way, thus, their music is more meaningful (at least to me). Ultimately, consonance and dissonance are of secondary importance to dramatic vs. "cerebral" music, regarding my preferences and views of composers and their music. If music is, by its very nature, more "lifeless", why would I want to listen to, or compose music of this sort? And regarding composers that have been more influential AND innovative, to me, that does not define the skill level of a composer. Of course, simply tenaciously sticking to diatonicism does not elevate the skill level of a composer above others either...
Tavener is a composer I am somewhat familiar with, but not incredibly so. I don't really remember any of his pieces particularly well, but of course, I am comparing him to composers like John Rutter, Morten Lauridsen, Herbert Howells, John Stainer, Eugene Englert, Carson Cooman, Nicholas Maw, etc. The first two of these folks are particularly memorable and distinctive to me. Arvo Part is great sure, and I know he is a composer sometimes compared to Tavener. But yeah, I really can't say I'm much of a fan of Arvo Part as it is, even though from recollection, his music is quite beautiful and well thought out. I think most folks probably value the religious element with Tavener and his music, more than most other aspects of his music. I certainly know the name, and know somewhat of what he has done. 🤷♂️🤷♂️
I met Graunke when it appeared randomly recommended by spotify. I listened to him before listening to your chat, and I also listened to Richard Nanes' symphonies after I saw him in another of your videos. I actually liked them because I enjoy atonal sludge. In comparison Tavener seems to me like music for midnight TV commercials. I hope you make more of these videos. I could suggest Humphrey Searle or Benjamin Frankel because I like them, or Kalevi Aho, Elisabetta Brusa, Christopher Rouse or Enjott Schneider, because I don't like them and find them better examples of not being genius enough for making good tunes, but not brave enough to make really ugly music.
I was all set to argue back that the ‘Song for Athene’ and ‘The Lamb’ are worthy pieces… but then you acknowledged that his small choral works are fine. Thanks for that. Can’t disagree about his longer pieces - they suck! I wish more composers would realize what they do well and branch out only cautiously.
I genuinely don’t know if I like or hate Tavener, if i could describe him in one word, that would be “edgy”, I actually like some of his stuff like Song of the angel and the soundtrack for Children of Men, but then you have things like “the last sleep of the virgin”, the musical equivalent of having an itch on your back and not been physically able to scratch it
@@DavesClassicalGuide Well, there was that Lost Weekend in North Korea, so that might explain both John's strange admiration for Dave and Dave's strange fixation for playing solitaire. “Dave Hurwitz is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known.” - John Tavener
Tavener isn't a total loss. There are some medicinal qualities to his music. For instance, if anyone I know falls into a coma, I just play some in their hospital room and they come out of it so they can turn him off. So, there's that.
You had me laughing. I made the $$ mistake of buying several of his other works and like Aval Parte another fraud with some works that are passable I found him wanting musically .
He is appreciated more in eastern europe. The British classical music press is fickle. His music hasn't vanished. He is still listened to. It seems to have become a solitary pursuit. Being in the middle of a big Tavener work can be a good experience even if one piece is similar to another.. Naxos has a nice box of his works.
Well I love Tavener's music. So there. 😁 I'm also not convinced by your repeated disparaging of music for being "spiritual". Have you ever criticised other music on the basis of it being overly secular, worldly, materialistic, mundane? Not that I've ever seen. Perhaps the latter group has just been more in fashion (gritty... rolling my eyes), and acceptable, through the 20th century and until quite recently. The antithesis of Tavener is the squeaks-and-farts orthodoxy we've all had to suffer through for decades, and that strand produced far more awful, boring stuff than the likes of Tavener, Part etc. Anyway, am greatly enjoying your channel. Thanks for all the content.
Thanks for the warning. I listened to some Graunke when you did that one. It was total blather. Wasted moments of my aging life. I've learned my lesson. If you say a composer stinks, that's good enough for me. I'll spare myself the punishment.
That is a funny talk! We agree totally - I hat to attend a performance of the "Mary"-opera. Oh, dear... Two hours, one drone... But would you condemn also the earlier works like "The Whale"? I know, it's a little too long, 25 minutes would be sufficient. But it seems to me that, here, he has some good ideas. In fact, this was the first work of his I got to know, and then came "Ikon of Light" and "The Protecting Veil" (and "Mary"), and I decided that's not "my" composer. (The soundclip on classictoday-insider is very convinving, could be Taveners best work...) Never do jokes with works which might have been... Some 30 years ago, I published on April Fool's Day an article about Bruckner's recently discovered extensive sketches for his opera "Das Leben der Heiligen Engelberta" (there is no such saint), found on an attic in Melbourne. I never again did such a thing...
Not everything anyone did is uniformly awful, and he definitely got worse as he "found himself." Perhaps that was the problem--he just became increasingly narcissistic and self-absorbed, and so less self-critical. As to the jokes, well, it's too late for that!
@@DavesClassicalGuide Never stop making such jokes! Ad Tavener: Well, I think you're right. In my opinion, the main problem was Mother Thekla. I have nothing against religious music as long religion and musical inspiration are balanced, f.e. in Bruckner or Penderecki or Messiaen or Rautavaara (I admire his Mass). My problem starts, when I must be of the composer's flock to understand or like his music. In my opinion, Orthodoxy has brought some fine pieces to life, f.e. in Rachmaninow or sometimes in Pärt, but I can listen to the "Vigil" or to "Kanon Pokajanen" without being of orthodox belief. Tavener has always that sort of missionary flavour, and that I don't like. Besides, his later music is just boring, and it would be even when it's themes would be secular.
Sometimes I feel John Tavener's music like a kind of wasted opportunity. He used sometimes very interesting and unusual orchestration. And sometimes I would imagine what could I do with a mix of his orchestration and a kind of Messiaen's orchestration (plus, maybe some electric and bass guitar). It could be very cool!. But, at the end, those countertenors, basses, saxophones, choirs and so on in their works....for me, many times, are a wasted opportunity.
Phantasm. Cantors of the Cotswolds. Octogenarian Welsh countertenors. Lol. I had the misfortune to be at the world premiere of Tavener's "The Apocalypse" at the Proms in the mid 1990's. It went on for hours without anything remotely engaging or memorable about it. A sort of screeching in pulled out tongues, a Holy Trinity of Trite. The end of the world it certainly was, he delivered on that, but a bad day for music too. Sounded like it was written by an ageing, pretentious prog rocker, with a fake tan, unbuttoned shirt, medallion & long hair. I can only suppose that the reason why his music has suddenly disappeared is because its now in Purgatory where it belongs for its sins. A pity Boulez never discovered him, that could've been a marriage made in Heaven.
Hahaha. I liked the "Octogenarian Welsh countertenors". Curiously, one thing I liked and I loved from John Tavener was the "weird instrumentation". Countertenors, basso profundos, Duduk, Handbells....Although sometimes I missed in his works things like Marimbas, Vibraphones and Xylophones (I think they only appeared in Celtic Requiem and The Whale). I prefered him as a composer than Pärt, which from the Trilogy Pärt-Górecki-Tavener is the one I liked less. But I have one criticism to John Tavener. He had a lot of potential in the instrumentation but at the end many works were so so so so so minimalistic, that it is sad, and sometimes I feel it like a lost opportunity. For example, Total Eclipse, countertenor and soprano saxophone. But I wish there were more creative parts and combination of instruments and voices.
Goodness, I finally agree with you 😎 Tavener wrote an unending stream of complete drivel, unlike his near namesake from the Renaissance, John Taverner, whose music is superb 🙏🏾🎶😎
At last! Someone calling a spade a spade! Actually using the word 'bad'. I couldn't agree more, but am a little concerned that your mention of him might provoke a reaction and a 'save-Taverner' movement. You're right though. So far he has vanished without trace and you could forget he had ever existed. 'Veil' is a standard mystical image and mystics just love anything that is hidden and unclear. I heard him interviewed once and he almost vanished in a cloud of smoke. There's one thing that mystics can't stand and that is clarity. I have subscribed on the basis of your opinion of Taverner. Please keep it up.
I think you're being harsh on TPV, I think it's a beautiful piece, with some actual changes of tempo and everything! But would agree about his other long form works; very long, very boring 😴
Didn't George Harrison kick-start Tavener's career with the recording of The Whale? Some wonderful short choral works, but the major works bored me. However, I'm not "spiritual."
It was Ringo Starr. If I recall the Tavener biography correctly, he hired Roger Tavener (the composer's brother, who was working in the family's firm of building contractors which is still trading under the directorship of one of his children) to work on his home, and at one planning meeting, Roger produced a copy of the recording made at the premiere of "The Whale." Ringo found it exciting and suggested setting up meetings between John Tavener and John Lennon, with a view to pitching the work for release on the Apple label. Paul McCartney also became involved in the project in an administrative role. At the recording sessions, Ringo Starr played some percussion and at one of the more surreal moments grabbed a loudhailer and can be heard yelling ("... and cause suffocation!") while John Tavener played the organ part. Apple subsequently recorded "Celtic Requiem," "Nomine Jesu" and "Coplas Espanolas" on another LP, after which it appears that Tavener and the Beatles parted ways, although he remained close friends with Paul McCartney, contributing a short choral work ("Prayer for the Healing of the Sick") to the collection "A Garland for Linda" in memory of McCartney's wife after her death from cancer.
😄 😄😄 Tavener's April fool's Theos (oratorio ?/ liturgy ?) aside, actual Greek orthodox liturgy, when well performed, is capivating. There is a recording of Easter week litourgies on Mt Athos on DG, and other (a capella) recordings by others religious artists I found very beautiful. No countertenors though...😄
As a member of my choir in secondary school I was forced to sing quite a lot of Tavener's choral music. I can safely say it was some of the most boring music I've ever had to sing. Fortunately we just as often sang works by Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart and Faure.
Totally agree: a worse than mediocre composer who was lucky that quite a few people were willing to test their bladders and kid themselves that a drone for hours (with a bit of pentatonic orientalism and a bit of amateurish modernism occasionally thrown in) they were undergoing a deeply spiritual experience. Even in the UK he was a bit of a joke to many and the once-popular Protesting Wail (The Lark Ascending and Ascending and Ascending and Ascending a bit more) has thankfully disappeared into thin air.
I’ve never heard Tavener’s music, and based on this video I’ll keep things that way. A comment on the first video in this series describing Graunke as “Hindemith without all the laughs” still has me chuckling a few months later. And compliments to Mr. Vernier’s hilarious “review” as well - at least these composers are good for a few yucks.
Some of his small choral works are actually exquisite. He does not work quite so well on a large scale, it is true. I accept that criticism to some extent but there are ravishing moments in his shorter pieces.
I recall picking up a copy of Gorecki's Third Symphony second-hand; and being dismayed at its emptiness, the first movement grinding along aimlessly and forever. "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" is an alluring title, and is indeed the best part of the piece. Meditate on it for five minutes and then use the time saved to trim your toenails.
Gorecki's symphony is still a lot better than these empty Tavener knockoffs that use the same building blocks but without any idea why they're being used. Even though Gorecki's work is extraordinarily simple, it was built off of much more emotion and understanding of it than anything Tavener wrote.
@@topologyrob God? Maybe some of us don't believe in imaginary friends. Even if we did it wouldn't in any way make us enjoy the monotony of one of England's worst composers, would it? I'll stick with Tippett, Walton, Brian, Bliss, Arnold, VW, Britten, Elgar, Tallis and Rawsthorne to name but a few. At least the works of these composers go somewhere instead of being stuck in a never ending trance with next to no substance. I've tried to "embrace the the void that is The Protecting Veil" but all I hear is a void.
Holy minimalism doesn't float your boat, in general, David? Gorecki, Part, James McMillan, Vasks, Kancheli, etc. etc. - is it all kitsch, or is there anything worthwhile to be found there?
Pretty sounds without much substance, at least in my opinion. I can't help thinking that the spiritual aspect simply provides a fig leaf for the composer, an excuse to write some insanely monotonous and simplistic music.
As an Anglican choral singer, I'd call Tavener a one-trick pony. The vertical symmetry of his polyphonic writing pays simple-minded homage to atonality, but just isn't interesting after the first couple of minutes. Song for Athene is one example, and a more frequently performed piece, The Lamb, milks the same approach. While we're on the subject, another one-trick pony is Morton Lauridsen, who writes triads with an added ninth, and beyond that just apes plainchant. Lauridsen is beautiful for the first couple of minutes, and thereafter is stupefyingly boring and monotonous. One other painfully monotonous piece, that was a fad for a while, is Franz Biebl's Ave Maria. It's beautiful at first, but painfully repetitive until about the last half-minute.
Apparently he is related to the Renaissance Taverner. According to him, anyway. You can find that reference in an interview somewhere. But the English always do like the idea of pedigree.
If in fact there is a connection, none of Taverner's immense talent rubbed off on his alleged descendant. There is more depth and beauty in 5 minutes of, say, the Western Wynde Mass than in all of Tavener's many, many hours.
Well he is at least better then that guy you did the first video on. Graunke is worse then Tavener. People at least listen to Tavener. Nobody listens to Graunke.
Hilarious fake review! I sat through the premiere of Akathist of Thanksgiving in 1988 and certainly gave thanks when it was over. It's hard to remember now what an industry Holy Minimalism was in the 90s, thankfully a phase that now seems to have passed. Pärt apart, good riddance!
Sigh, ....I kept seeing performers going on about The Protecting Veil and then numerous performances popping up so I thought I'd try it. It was OK, but I was kind of missing it. I'd return every once in a while and still nothing. I suspect it was popular because it has a nice cello part and there are not enough cello works for all the extra cello players to record. Like you say, just trust your ears, not the hype. Thanks for letting me off the hook so I don't have to try and "get into this" again.
Tavener isn't one of my favorites, but I'm not really into choral music very much. However, to call him BAD is really not warranted. There are lots and lots of far worse composers. Guys who wouldn't know a melody or beautiful harmony if their lives depended on it. Tavener is at least listenable. You want bad? Look at Roger Sessions, Michael Tippett, PIerre Boulez, Rene Leibowitz...and an endless list of mid-20th century scribblers.
He was BAD. Really, really BAD. The fact that there are those who your think are worse doesn't mean he wasn't BAD. It just means that there are lots of BAD composers. Maybe if you're lucky I'll pick one of yours someday. Then someone else will say that pick really isn't BAD. And so it goes. Yawn.
@@markswintonorganist8227 Tippett is definitely an interesting composer, and was a fine exemplar of humanity. Artistically, I think he was weakest as his own librettist.
Thank you Dave. I may annoy people as much as you like to sometimes but I really cannot, cannot (emphasis) stand this sort of music that was so extolled back in the day. Reactionary rubbish. I can really appreciate Arvo Part but even that is a stretch. Dubious, supposedly crowd pleasing "tonal" nonsense, and the "Royal associations" here just make it that much more worse. I'd be gasping, frankly, for Chronochomie or Sur Incises, or absolutely anything by Ligeti after sitting through this! Now, you haven't done a single video about Ligeti, who you obviously rate as a composer, so maybe we could not waste our time on this nonsense and hear about that? All best
We have to hear about everything, eventually. I haven't talked about Ligeti because I will need to play samples and, other than the Etudes, I haven't seen much coming out lately. But we'll see.
@@DavesClassicalGuide totally understand. Most of it even now is on the old “major labels” who won’t do this for you. So better to wait I guess. Seems a shame, 1000+ videos in, not to say something focused re him though. Having watched (and thank you so much) most of those 1000+ videos though, I know you have a bit of a theory about a composer’s works tending to not get attention for a while after they pass away. I’m sure there are some other counter examples, but I don’t think you could say the same of Ligeti, which says something, the recordings only seem to be accelerating. Something that touches people was clearly going on there
@@topologyrob Of course I have a clue, i I’m reporting what I think, not what you think (6 months ago apparently). As for “tonal” and religiosity, mine are contextual judgments about shifts in music since the 1960s (and it is certainly in part a “reaction”). I wouldn’t say this, for example, about 18th century music.
@@topologyrob I don’t think that. Just as heterosexual relationships, for example, are massively the norm. Robert, now I’m apparently “sheltered”, as though I’m not aware of broadly tonal musics. I don’t think this is a very productive kind of discussion as you’re apparently trying to take pot shots at me (literally, in your last post). What exactly are your arguments here otherwise? If you don’t really have any, I’d really prefer you stop.
@@topologyrob oh dear. You’re objecting because I don’t like the music. That’s all it is. As I said, please stop sending me these (rather out of date) messages. That’s the last time I’m saying that.
I happened across some of Tavener's "music" fairly recently, not having been all that familiar with him. The works put me into a funk for several days. I worry for those enjoy this music.
It might be an unpopular opinion, I might be elitist or exaggerated, but to me people like Tavener, Pärt and post-youth Gorecki are more New-Age producers than proper Classical composers.
That is a perfectly fair point of view, but it depends on one's definition of what constitutes "classical" music. I would agree with your proposition to the extent that no "modern" music can properly be called "classical." It's simply music written using performance media or formal strategies in common with the things that we do call classical. With that said, I also don't believe it is for us to decide that such works are NOT classical. That will be determined by future generations of listeners as part of the ongoing winnowing process that decides what the "true classics" really are. I prefer to think of these pieces as music in large forms, or "art music" (I hate that term too for obvious reasons), or music written in a certain style.
Discovered Tavener 25 years ago and it never left me. The Akhmatova songs are what got me into his music. The Protecting Veil, Depart in Peace, Many Years, The World, Tears of the Angel… so many masterpieces to me.
Bad composer?
I totally agree with you. Every time life is getting troubled I return to John Tavener. His music gives peace to troubled hearts and his music comes from the heart. Let some of his works last for hours. Why not? It is not musical fast food!
@@astrophilsydenham8319 I feel the very same!
The Akathist of Thanksgiving is--from start to finish--a masterpiece. Were that the only thing Tavener had written, it would have been enough....
So it looks like a lot of people detest John Tavener's music. I can completely accept it. I'll probably be ridiculed for this, but I really like his music. To me, the celestial ambiance and simplicity is what sells it for me. I especially love his Funeral Canticle, Lamentations and Praises, and The Last Sleep of the Virgin. They have that church vibe, not gonna lie. I totally dig the music. Again, I'll probably be ridiculed for this. But at least I'm being honest here.
Me too... 😄
If you like it, that's fine. Lots of people do.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Alright, good to know.
I also like Lamentations and Praises. Sometimes I'd think about a fusion of that stuff with the Messiaen and Stravinsky styles. Probably, it would have more musical "meat".
I agree. I adore Tavener. Even most of his longer works. I love Total Eclipse and have used excerpts of Funeral Canticle many times for my final rest in my yoga classes.
Truthfully, I cannot understand it. John Taverners music borders on the sublime. But tbh, not everyone is willing to be touched this deeply, this personally..people want entertainment, not deep heartfelt introspection. I find that people who love Taverner are acquainted with loss and sorrow. Those who have not contemplated eternity will not enjoy Taverner. The day ends, shades lengthen, and the daylight fades into night. Taverner is the poet of the coming night, and night comes for us all.
It comes especially for those who rhapsodize about the composer but can't even spell his name correctly. Kind of says it all, doesn't it?
@@DavesClassicalGuide Perhaps taking into consideration that that the elderly, the visually impaired and those with shaking hands due to Parkinson's and other disorders of the elderly find great comfort in this beautiful music. It should give you some insight into how this unintentional slight to a great a composer could happen. I would not ascribe to carelessness or want of literacy a fault that may well be no more than a human reaction to the passing of time. The gorgeous icons depicted in many of the videos with is composer's works are no less beautiful for the wear and tear of the passing centuries, are they? The sense of hearing, science tells us, is the last to leave. Perhaps we hear the better for the dimming of other senses. It's rather a blessing, in fact, that in the absence of tact and want of warmth we cannot see the expressions that meet the stumbling aged foot, the harmless old and palsied hand. One need not be old to appreciate this lovely music, but it does require a delicacy of feeling much wanting in these days. Pity.
@@astrophilsydenham8319 I suppose taking into consideration that John Tavenor"s ( I believe I spelled it correctly this time) music extoll's the beauty of reverent humility, gentleness, piety and a kind of sweetness born of patient suffering, that this gentleman would not find it enjoyable. And indeed it isn't for everyone. I love the music of Elgar, Ola Gjello, Max Richter, Dan Forrest, etc. and not everyone does. I can however recognize greatness even if the esthetic of a particular style is not to my taste. Have lovely evening, from central Texas!🌸🪷🌷
@@Esme-gf4jdha ha ha... very funny.. now I see you are taking the proverbial p*ss. Yes. Very good "palsied hand" . I laughed up my breakfast.
@@DavesClassicalGuide How dare you, Dave! People who appreciate Tavener have deeply profound soles.
Your comment about the idea and conception of the work being of more interest than the actual music is spot on. Many current composers know this and milk it for what it's worth. In pop music "criticism" it is pretty much all that is critiqued. What the songwriter/composer was living through, and what inspired them passes for craft.
Not fair; when he is good, he is very good, but when he is bad he is very bad. He wrote too much, for sure, too many oratorio-type overblown compositions, but some of his shorter works are wonderful. Check out his Ikon of light too, and his Schuon lieder. Even , if you are in the mood for it, The veil of the temple. As for the latter, I would love to have been at the performance of it in the Temple church, all 5 or so hours of it. And The last sleep of the Virgin is magical.
Very fair. The fact that he wrote a few charming miniatures doesn't compensate for hours of dreck.
Schuon Leider is being performed tonight at Temple Church in London.
It’s absolutely outrageous to bring up ghastly world history in a jovial conversation about music!
I also like Ikon of Light and Schuon Lieder. And the Songs of The Sky.
Totally disagree. I like his work. I love The Protecting Veil.
It's your nickel.
That’s right! Love your posts by the way!
One (probably the only one) bright side of Tavener’s music is the short choral work “The Lamb”, which is gorgeous. I mainly got hooked on it because of its use in the Italian film “The Great Beauty”, it worked very well within that film.
Yes, it's a lovely piece. I like the sequel too, "The Protecting Veal."
@@DavesClassicalGuide Lol.
@@DavesClassicalGuide my word
Same for me
@@DavesClassicalGuide 🤣
I'm a choral conductor and I can confirm that more singers loathe Tavener than like him. The earlier, shorter pieces are effective in their own way. The longer pieces are a trial because a) you need a healthy collection of third basses, and if you're not in Russia, they are the hardest voices to find, b) these basses are often left droning away under the stave for minutes on end, and when the music hits a loud dynamic, Tavener expects the them to be able to sing their subterranean notes as loud as the first sopranos belting it out above the stave, c) Tavener's reliance on mirror canons and long stretches of parallel harmony are boring, d) many passages are badly written for the voice and finding places to breathe is always an issue, e) the faux-spirituality is frankly, embarrassing. Some of the more ambitious pieces, like Total Eclipse (remember that, with John Harle screeching away) are just plain awful. If there is a Tavener 'masterpiece' then I would say it's the Akhmatova Requiem, which is barely known.
Thanks for the insider perspective.
Yes, Akhmatova Requiem was better than other more known pieces. I like Akhmatova Requiem, Celtic Requiem, The Whale. I understand your points. That's why I prefer, for example, Messiaen.
The irony is that Akhmatova Requiem was a flop at its first performance, at a BBC Prom concert. It was preceded by a Beethoven symphony, and according to Tavener's biographer Geoffrey Haydon, this "brought out the Beethoven crowd" and a number of seats remained empty after the interval. Moreover, when the Requiem began and the rest of the audience realised they were about to sit through "a gloomy modern epic," they began a slow trickle towards the exits. Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who was conducting, faced trouble with the authorities when returning to Russia afterwards: apparently his luggage was searched, the concert programme (including the text of the work, by Anna Akhmatova) was confiscated and Rozhdestvensky was accused of trying to bring forbidden literature into the country - Akhmatova's poetry had been banned in the Soviet Union - and he was released on the technicality that the literature was a concert programme and not an actual book by Akhmatova! The work was, however, greatly appreciated by the owner of an hotel in Greece that Tavener often visited at the time - he had a copy of the tape recording and of the score, which he couldn't understand but felt was a perfect match for the words and believed that Tavener's setting could serve as a battle cry for the Orthodox faith, as some of Akhmatova's poems did.
I guess in your case faux spiritually is replaced with faux intellectualism.
@@gideonros2705before you insult, learn to spell
1. John Tavener's music sounds absolutely magnificent after spending a few hours at the tavern and a few minutes on the john.
2. Dave quoting Tavener at 14:22-36: "My music is moving closer and closer to the defining center of God which has no physical substance and therefore, as I come closer to this point, my music will eventually have no physical existence, no measurable sound at all."
3. In other words, Tavener will have arrived where John Cage had gone before in his 4'33", composed in 1952 as a duration of silence for any instrument or combination of instruments.
Minas Tirith! That whole bit, and the story about the organ, were hilarious. Can someone explain the horse-neighing at "Bruckner"? I've come across this a few times and have wondered where it started.
Look up "Frau Blucher" on TH-cam (from "Young Frankenstein")
Ha! Now I see... That's really funny.
Serendipitously, I must note that the Wikipedia entry for Angus Scrimm (not his birth name) who played The Tall Man in the Phantasm franchise, states that he started as a journalist and that he wrote lots of liner notes for LPs/CDs and apparently "won a Grammy (credited as Rory Guy, as were his early film roles) for his liner notes to the 1974 album Korngold: The Classic Erich Wolfgang Korngold."
You mentioned Arvo Pärt, who appears to draw from the same fount of spiritualism as Tavener, particularly in his later works. I see little of him nowadays as well, to be honest, and he used to be everywhere for a while. Same with Gorécki's Third Symphony. Do you think that brand of musical spiritualism has died out, or at least diminished in importance?
One can only hope.
Tavener, Part and Gorecki are often mentioned in the same breath, and have shared CDs, as if they are part of some 'school' of sacred minimalism or some such thing. In fact, their music is quite different. Of the three, I would argue that Part is the most distinctive, insofar as he developed a system that he uses consistently, as did Messiaen. Gorecki favours the kind of stasis that would make even Beethoven blush; his work is rather dull although his choral adaptations of folk songs from his native Poland are worth hearing. A music critic once barbed Tavener by pointing out that Part was born Orthodox whilst Tavener was merely a convert; it could also be observed that while Tavener tended to proselytise through his music, Part keeps his faith separate from his music - although he has composed a great deal of religious work, he tends not to discuss religion. Part was introduced to Tavener in person in the 80s, but apparently not much came of their meeting: at the time, Part spoke very little English and on the day in question was suffering from toothache so couldn't speak much anyway, so his opinion of Tavener's work remained known only to himself. Asked about Part in the late 90s, Tavener remarked that he liked Part's music very much but felt that there was truly only one thing they had in common: a passion for classic cars....
@@markswintonorganist8227 I went to a concert recently where Gorecki's SQ 3 was performed. I cheered wildly at the end mostly in recognition of the boredom the players had to endure performing it. Also seems completely derivative of Shostakovich 15.
@@rexiioper6920 I have among my friends a handful of former Westminster Abbey choristers who sang in the 50th birthday festival of Tavener's music in 1994. One of them summed up the experience rather more pithily than the music itself: "Bloody Akathist of bloody Thanksgiving," referring to having not only had to perform the work in concert but then having to return to the Abbey that same night to re-record it so that the commercial CD could be produced with relatively little audience noise and any errors ironed out. Years later, some performers of Tavener's "Veil of the Temple," on a break between sections in which they were involved, were heard remarking: "this feels more like a rehearsal than a performance."
As I've remarked elsewhere, any power that Tavener has (likewise Pärt and Gorecki) lies in short pieces, which neither outstay their welcome nor enforce a mighty endurance test on those performing them.
The lamb is one of the most exquisite pieces of music ever written.If he never wrote anything else that piece is mesmerising.
💯🎯👍
One of the GREAT tragedies of 21st Century musical history is that the musically-challenged and consistently BORING John Tavener is very often confused - especially in the supposedly "critical" musical press! - with the VERY GREAT Renaissance composer, John Tave(r)ner (also English, c. 1490-1545). The two names being so very close in spelling is quite suggestive, wouldn't you say? Nothing like a very well-known, revered and respected quantity to mask your own ineptitude! Mike D.
yeah I did a double take when reading the title of the video
I saw the video title, and thought, "oh please, don't be the Renaissance composer!"
The mediaeval composer John Taverner, is an ancestor, of Sir John Tavener.
@@topologyrob a early Renaissance composer.
The worst thing is that they even both made spiritual choral music
I have the Protecting Veil - I've played it (not on an instrument, I fear) - I can't remember a note of it. I did on the other hand like, for a while, his Last Sleep of the Virgin, in various forms. Something to be played just now and then - OK, more "then" - when one's in that sort of mood. I don't remember his Athenae piece, whatever it was called, since I did not linger long over the funeral recording; did it come before or after the mawkish Elton John piece?
There's much to be said for playing only old music at funerals - a look at the late Queen Mother's face exposed the folly of trying to make the traditional contemporary: she was probably expecting a chorus-line of dancing boys to prance through the Abbey. She looked as if she had steeled herself for the eventuality.
This talk made me curious about what you think of the minimal music composers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich or Michael Nyman. They made some interesting shorter pieces or film music. But are their larger works interesting enough for you to talk about?
Some of them are. I like a lot of their music.
I remember a Dutch reviewer of a CD with Tavener music calling it "musical wallpaper"....
Was that fair to @real@ wallpaper?
The pattern certainly repeats itself a lot.
As you said Taverner is some sort of Arvo Pärt without his talent. And I agree, but that takes me to ask if you have considered the idea of an Arvo Pärt video. I love his music and I love your analysis, so it will be just great!!
I get that you don't like most of his work, but you just sound so bitter it's unfathomable.
He's not interesting enough to make me sound bitter. Your characterization is simply a function of your disagreeing with my opinion. I'm actually very happy about my disgust with him, and I think the video reveals THAT very clearly.
@@DavesClassicalGuide no, you really are a bitter and cynical person. this video is just a scramble of you projecting your own misery of not being talented enough to do anything meaningful onto other person. but whatever makes you and your lifetime work, that's never even made it out of the abbys of oblivion, feel relevant to anyone for even a split of a second
Minor point but he was Russian Orthodox I think. Among the somewhat longer works the Akathist of Thanksgiving was always a pleasant listen every few years or so, but on the whole his output is pretty insufferable, and if you read anything of his commentary about his own life and work, oh brother.
I actually have 2 recordings of the protecting veil. How did that happen?
Same here. I gave it a second chance before sending it to a charity shop, where I saw another 20 copies!!
Naxos put out a disc with "The Protecting Veil" and "In Alium," setting 'new age' Tavener against 'early' Tavener. That was quite a revelation and a clever bit of programming!
What’s your opinion on funeral canticle?
Tavener's stuff was a mystery to me; I don't know what projected it to the public consciousness for a little while, but it wasn't the Emperor's New Clothes, it wasn't even the Emperor sans New Clothes! Messiaen is constantly "spiritual" too, as well as Rautavaara, so that's not the problem... apparently Tavener was the problem. Alas.
And the Myrow/Seagrave score to PHANTASM is more interesting than anything I've ever heard from Tavener.
They're performing a Tavener piece for SQ/piano/soprano/tibetan bowls at a famous church in London tonight; cheap tickets; glad I found this video in advance.
I remember reading an article about John Tavener in the Observer colour supplement. I forget who the journalist interviewing him was but remember the conclusion went something like, "I liked him. This is a shame because I regret I cannot say the same for his music." Not long before reading this, I remember getting all excited about the premiere of a new work of his "The Apocalypse", an oratorio about four hours long. I quite enjoyed the first ten minutes before realising that this contained all the music. This was just repeated about thirty times, possibly with different words. Then there was the "Note of Eternity", the D above Middle C, played by a string quartet as a pedal throughout the whole damned thing (sounds very much like the April Fool review, but it was definitely not an F#). Couldn't take Tavener seriously after that.
The other day, it happend to me with his Song Of The Cosmos
@@bernab Something like a castrated Monteverdi crossed with a very poor pastiche of Ligeti. One of Tavener's better works, I think.
I’m sorry there was no part for Minas Tirith’s cousin, Minas Morgul 😂
...conducted by Nazgûl Snezick-Yeggin, of course.
Of course!
I wonder if Lord Aragorn was in attendance that day !
The premiere will take place "during the next major televised funeral"... you naughty men!
I think just the opposite - I find his short pieces to be weak and his long pieces to be haunting, mystical and powerful. It's a pity that 'Ultimos Ritos' has not been recorded.
Agreed. There are two movements from it - "Nomine Jesu" and "Coplas" - on his second album for Apple records, alongside the "Celtic Requiem". I have the score of the whole thing, and I'd love someone to record it.
I totally agree about Ultimos Ritos. I’ve heard it live twice, both times in Westminster Cathedral. It a wonderfully sprawling work taking in Taverner’s personal take on all twelve chromatic notes in the second movement with the basses and then the apocalyptic trumpets “from a very high gallery”. At the second performance, some years later I was concerned it might feel dated, and to some extent it does, but the overall impact is greater. I have a copy of the score, one of my treasured possessions.
@@georgesdelatour I love those two pieces. It is a pity I didn't find and I couldn't listen Ultimos Ritos.
i bought his best of and i only liked The Lamb and The Protecting Veil. Actually i bought it just for the björk piece he arranged which i do absolutely love.
Is Tavener is as bad as you say? It may say something that I sang in a complete performance of The Veil of the Temple but remember nothing at all about the music. By way of contrast, I vividly recall emotional and musical experiences from many epic works that twenty years in The Dessoff Choirs brought my way, from Bach’s B Minor Mass (once with a period orchestra and another time in a Hebrew translation) to Belshazzar’s Feast at Royal Festival Hall to everything by Britten big and small, especially the War Requiem for Lorin Maazel’s farewell concerts with the NY Philharmonic. What I do remember about Veil of the Temple is that it started at 10:30 pm and ended at 5:30 am at which time the various choruses, including a children’s choir flown in from the UK, holding candles and incense and humming a raga, led the audience out into the plaza at Lincoln Center where everyone was treated to bagels and coffee. To accommodate the all-night audience at Avery Fisher Hall (now David Geffen Hall), all the seats in the orchestra level were removed and replaced by cushions so that people could nap on the floor. At various times during the night the multiple choirs sang not only on the main stage but popped up in different balconies and tiers around the concert hall. We also received ahead of time a flyer titled “Sleep Deprivation & Performance Effectiveness - preparing for The Veil of the Temple” advising us to sleep 4 to 8 hours the afternoon before the performance, suggesting caffeine tablets during the performance, and counseling us not to drive afterwards.
Ohh how sad. I love The protecting veil.
So good you bring Bruckner in at the end...his symphonies are compelling and his spirituality was profoundly personal.
Bruckner was actually a composer.
That Theos review..... I haven't laughed so much in ages.
Hi David, I find your observation that people and record lables buy records just because someone is famous without listening to the work very similar to what happens in the other arts. Scribbles from their childhood by famous artists are sold for huge sums, a lot of art work is not even done by the artist but the 'story' of the artist and the art work are more important than the work itself.
remember Stephen Hawkings book? much bought rarely read
"...pretentious, monotonous essays in pseudo-spirituality" - I do get your point for this precise case, but weren't those the words uttered and published by numerous contemporaries for ones like Bruckner, to name but the most notorious? My grandma, in her love with Mozart, and reverent of Bach, was convinced the Br(rrr)uckner guy was crap. Time changes some perspectives... not all, of course.
Of course. And the fact that they were uttered incorrectly in one context doesn't make them inappropriate in another. This was an easy call.
I remember that the Beatles' Apple label was announced, when it started, as planning to issue recordings of contemporary music. The only LP they issued was Taverner's "The Whale". I listened to a few minutes of the work and lost interest. As I write this, I am listening to the only Teverner piece I own "Mandelion" (more fake Greek) on a double CD of organ music on Nimbus which I bought for one of the other composers'' works. Ten minutes in, and I am still waiting for something to happen. I remember also, the publicity for Tavener, featuring photos of him posing piously in front of a stained-glass window.. "Holier than thou", indeed. -
Apple also released his "Celtic Requiem," "Coplas Españolas" and "Nomine Jesu" on another LP, though it was not as popular in the day. Even in those early works, you can detect the kind of non-developmental stasis that would permeate his later works - it's just in a different idiom. Of course, in those days he had (according to John Rutter and David Lumsdaine) difficulty getting his ideas down onto paper....
Apple also released Celtic Requiem as well (but I think only in the UK). I’m not a fan of either works, though I do quite enjoy his later stuff - and I generally dislike classical music.
I have a CD which contains Kancheli's Styx and Tavener's The Myrrh-Bearer played by Rysanov, Sirmais/Liepaja SO. I love Kancheli's Stxy, which is one of my favorite "contemporary" piece but I listened to the Tavener only once and never again.
What I am getting at is Tavener is like Sorabji but with none of the qualities that made Sorabji a great composer. Also, could you please do a talk on Sorabji? He is a favorite of mine and is severely underrated.
I have talked about him, but I think he's a very, very mediocre composer and I really have no desire to promote him. Sorry.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Do you mind informing me on the video which contains this? I admittedly am not an avid follower of the channel but I can not seem to find anything on Sorabji.
@@dzordzszs I don't know. I mention him in passing a few times. There is no dedicated discussion of his music.
@@DavesClassicalGuide fair enough, thanks
Rather than mocking his mediocrity can we not celebrate an artist able to achieve recognition and remuneration within his lifetime?
We just did that with Leroy Anderson. You don't have to be mediocre to achieve recognition and remuneration withing your own lifetime.
So right. I thought it was just me.
Hey David how about Herbert Howells Piano Cencertos. I recently started listening to Tavener again and then along comes your presentation. It takes a long time for English composers to be revived. Elgar was very out of fashion for a while. 2 or 3 of Tavener's pieces will stay known. The Lamb has millions of views on TH-cam. Tipoett is making a slight comeback. Bax isn't played live but cds/downloads sell. Tavener has a niche. He is someone who is still sung. I can think of other composers who died in the last few years whose music has vanished.
Rhozdestvensky reverred the Protecting Veil and recorded it with the LSO.
I remember seeing a documentary on Tavener sometime in the 1990s in which he wandered piously around various monastic surroundings looking supremely spiritual and self consciously un-worldly. The whole thing was so pretentious and pompous I ignored his music until a couple of years ago when I heard one of his pieces I discovered I did enjoy.
Having watched this video, I'd say it's time for my daily dose of Richard Nanes. LR
I had one of his CDs on in my car and I had to turn it off because I was worried that I'd go to sleep.
Attended the premiere of Tavener's last work Flood of Beauty in 2015. This is what I remembered, "...particularly vexatious and self-indulgent, almost drowning within in its own suffocating froth. By now, some audience members were seen leaving the hall."
I remember listening that work Live, in the premiere. Two months ago I listened it again. It is funny, because i think as a composer he wanted to be clear as much as possible with the voices. But the constant Soprano and Tenor singing together against those massive number of instruments was against the clarity of the syllables that they were singing. Certainly, I am not a fan of Flood of Beauty.
Yeah, but hes still a better composer than any of us sitting here staring at our phones😁.
How do you know?
Not me.
The 10,000th fastest sprinter in the world sprints faster than most of us sitting staring at our phones. Doesn't mean the world needs him/ her to sprint.
Love the "Young Frankenstein" reference at the end!
I subscribe to the Anna Russell Theory of modern music. With modern music, you never know if the composer has reached new heights, or if he is just trying to put one over on you.
I say that about Shostakovich and Weinberg string quartets all the time!
You know, that's actually a very astute attitude.
Listen to Tallis Scholars doing his “Missa Corona Spinea”, one of my favorites of theirs.
That work is not by John Tavener but by John TaveRner an english renaissance composer
Different John Taverner from way back
I only listened the music of the movie The Great Beauty, that one is the only one I know. And I like that song. I will listen the other ones later, so I can have a better opinion.
Couldn't agree more!
Hi Dave. A suggestion... these days we're celebrating John Williams 90th birthday. And even if you're one of his detractors, I think that his influence in importance in music for movies in the past 50 years at least can't be underestimated. So how about dedicating a talk to him?
First, I don't have permission to play and samples. Second, I don't think is influence has mattered one bit. I don't think he's had any influence at all. Don't get me wrong, I believe he is an excellent composer for films, and I enjoy a lot of his work, but he has built his career entirely on that of his illustrious predecessors, so in that sense he is irrelevant. I also don't celebrate birthdays or anniversaries any more than I do obituaries. I don't find such things compelling justification, musically speaking. I hope he has a happy birthday. If and when I have the right to use his music in a video, I will happily do a talk about it.
@@DavesClassicalGuide You've heard John Williams's classical works, I assume. I'd be AMAZED if you have not.
Williams specializes in crafting melodies that fit adventure, family and dramatic movies, yes. You know that he has both a classical and jazz background, and was probably the best conductor the Boston Pops has ever seen. Not to mention his other astounding musical abilities... I mention all this because I think when looking at how influential or noteworthy any composer is, film, classical, both, or otherwise, one should take into account their overall level of musicianship when looking at this subject.
We all know (primarily) where Williams gets his inspiration. We all know how closely many of his themes mirror other preexisting themes in film and classical music. But yes, each of his themes are truly his own.
In my experience, whenever I have tried to compose something more avant-garde-ish that lacks a clear melody, even just one motif or discernable idea, regardless of what is happening in the other aspects of the piece, I'm never satisfied with the piece. The same could be said for all other music that is similar in this regard. Serialism (except in the case of, say Alban Berg), is particularly lifeless, and to me, utterly devoid of any real meaning. So I don't value music of this sort very highly at all.
John Williams is ten times the composer of most anyone alive today. The single biggest reason I began playing brass instruments was because of the film music of John Williams. There are not many like him, who are truly on his level. "Tunesmiths" as I have heard the term from contemporary composers/professors, are also quite often superior musicians when compared to avant-garde composers. In fact, this is often ridiculously the case. (Most modern film composers are not quite as good of course, but this has more to do with the evolving state of things like the process of movie making...)
I would hope that many people love Stravinsky, Scriabin, Christopher Young, Lalo Schifrin, Ravel, etc. These composers use dissonance in a dramatic way, thus, their music is more meaningful (at least to me). Ultimately, consonance and dissonance are of secondary importance to dramatic vs. "cerebral" music, regarding my preferences and views of composers and their music. If music is, by its very nature, more "lifeless", why would I want to listen to, or compose music of this sort?
And regarding composers that have been more influential AND innovative, to me, that does not define the skill level of a composer. Of course, simply tenaciously sticking to diatonicism does not elevate the skill level of a composer above others either...
who was the really bad composer part 1?
Kurt Graunke.
Tavener is a composer I am somewhat familiar with, but not incredibly so. I don't really remember any of his pieces particularly well, but of course, I am comparing him to composers like John Rutter, Morten Lauridsen, Herbert Howells, John Stainer, Eugene Englert, Carson Cooman, Nicholas Maw, etc. The first two of these folks are particularly memorable and distinctive to me.
Arvo Part is great sure, and I know he is a composer sometimes compared to Tavener. But yeah, I really can't say I'm much of a fan of Arvo Part as it is, even though from recollection, his music is quite beautiful and well thought out.
I think most folks probably value the religious element with Tavener and his music, more than most other aspects of his music. I certainly know the name, and know somewhat of what he has done. 🤷♂️🤷♂️
"like Arvo Part with no talent" 🤣... nailed it yet again
Yes. Fully agree. Part with no talent!!
I met Graunke when it appeared randomly recommended by spotify. I listened to him before listening to your chat, and I also listened to Richard Nanes' symphonies after I saw him in another of your videos. I actually liked them because I enjoy atonal sludge. In comparison Tavener seems to me like music for midnight TV commercials. I hope you make more of these videos. I could suggest Humphrey Searle or Benjamin Frankel because I like them, or Kalevi Aho, Elisabetta Brusa, Christopher Rouse or Enjott Schneider, because I don't like them and find them better examples of not being genius enough for making good tunes, but not brave enough to make really ugly music.
I was all set to argue back that the ‘Song for Athene’ and ‘The Lamb’ are worthy pieces… but then you acknowledged that his small choral works are fine. Thanks for that.
Can’t disagree about his longer pieces - they suck! I wish more composers would realize what they do well and branch out only cautiously.
I genuinely don’t know if I like or hate Tavener, if i could describe him in one word, that would be “edgy”, I actually like some of his stuff like Song of the angel and the soundtrack for Children of Men, but then you have things like “the last sleep of the virgin”, the musical equivalent of having an itch on your back and not been physically able to scratch it
If I could describe him in one word it would be "pseudo--." You can add anything you want after that and it would probably be true.
Ironically Dave he always spoke of you in the highest terms. 😉
As well he should have. We were both merely being truthful.
@@DavesClassicalGuide
Well, there was that Lost Weekend in North Korea, so that might explain both John's strange admiration for Dave and Dave's strange fixation for playing solitaire.
“Dave Hurwitz is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known.” - John Tavener
Tavener isn't a total loss. There are some medicinal qualities to his music. For instance, if anyone I know falls into a coma, I just play some in their hospital room and they come out of it so they can turn him off. So, there's that.
im dead LMAO
You had me laughing. I made the $$ mistake of buying several of his other works and like Aval Parte another fraud with some works that are passable I found him wanting musically .
He is appreciated more in eastern europe. The British classical music press is fickle. His music hasn't vanished. He is still listened to. It seems to have become a solitary pursuit.
Being in the middle of a big Tavener work can be a good experience even if one piece is similar to another.. Naxos has a nice box of his works.
I think Tavener's aims in his cello concerto are better understood under its originally proposed titles, The Protracted Wail or The Pretentious Fail.
Well I love Tavener's music. So there. 😁
I'm also not convinced by your repeated disparaging of music for being "spiritual". Have you ever criticised other music on the basis of it being overly secular, worldly, materialistic, mundane? Not that I've ever seen. Perhaps the latter group has just been more in fashion (gritty... rolling my eyes), and acceptable, through the 20th century and until quite recently.
The antithesis of Tavener is the squeaks-and-farts orthodoxy we've all had to suffer through for decades, and that strand produced far more awful, boring stuff than the likes of Tavener, Part etc.
Anyway, am greatly enjoying your channel. Thanks for all the content.
Carl Jung calls atheism the modern urban neurosis. Spirituality is lost on some of its earliest proponents.
Thanks for the warning. I listened to some Graunke when you did that one. It was total blather. Wasted moments of my aging life. I've learned my lesson. If you say a composer stinks, that's good enough for me. I'll spare myself the punishment.
That is a funny talk! We agree totally - I hat to attend a performance of the "Mary"-opera. Oh, dear... Two hours, one drone...
But would you condemn also the earlier works like "The Whale"? I know, it's a little too long, 25 minutes would be sufficient. But it seems to me that, here, he has some good ideas. In fact, this was the first work of his I got to know, and then came "Ikon of Light" and "The Protecting Veil" (and "Mary"), and I decided that's not "my" composer.
(The soundclip on classictoday-insider is very convinving, could be Taveners best work...)
Never do jokes with works which might have been... Some 30 years ago, I published on April Fool's Day an article about Bruckner's recently discovered extensive sketches for his opera "Das Leben der Heiligen Engelberta" (there is no such saint), found on an attic in Melbourne. I never again did such a thing...
Not everything anyone did is uniformly awful, and he definitely got worse as he "found himself." Perhaps that was the problem--he just became increasingly narcissistic and self-absorbed, and so less self-critical. As to the jokes, well, it's too late for that!
@@DavesClassicalGuide Never stop making such jokes!
Ad Tavener: Well, I think you're right. In my opinion, the main problem was Mother Thekla. I have nothing against religious music as long religion and musical inspiration are balanced, f.e. in Bruckner or Penderecki or Messiaen or Rautavaara (I admire his Mass).
My problem starts, when I must be of the composer's flock to understand or like his music. In my opinion, Orthodoxy has brought some fine pieces to life, f.e. in Rachmaninow or sometimes in Pärt, but I can listen to the "Vigil" or to "Kanon Pokajanen" without being of orthodox belief. Tavener has always that sort of missionary flavour, and that I don't like. Besides, his later music is just boring, and it would be even when it's themes would be secular.
@@edwinbaumgartner5045 Rachmaninov Vespers is a hard act to follow.
Sometimes I feel John Tavener's music like a kind of wasted opportunity. He used sometimes very interesting and unusual orchestration. And sometimes I would imagine what could I do with a mix of his orchestration and a kind of Messiaen's orchestration (plus, maybe some electric and bass guitar). It could be very cool!. But, at the end, those countertenors, basses, saxophones, choirs and so on in their works....for me, many times, are a wasted opportunity.
Phantasm. Cantors of the Cotswolds. Octogenarian Welsh countertenors. Lol. I had the misfortune to be at the world premiere of Tavener's "The Apocalypse" at the Proms in the mid 1990's. It went on for hours without anything remotely engaging or memorable about it. A sort of screeching in pulled out tongues, a Holy Trinity of Trite. The end of the world it certainly was, he delivered on that, but a bad day for music too. Sounded like it was written by an ageing, pretentious prog rocker, with a fake tan, unbuttoned shirt, medallion & long hair. I can only suppose that the reason why his music has suddenly disappeared is because its now in Purgatory where it belongs for its sins. A pity Boulez never discovered him, that could've been a marriage made in Heaven.
Hahaha. I liked the "Octogenarian Welsh countertenors". Curiously, one thing I liked and I loved from John Tavener was the "weird instrumentation". Countertenors, basso profundos, Duduk, Handbells....Although sometimes I missed in his works things like Marimbas, Vibraphones and Xylophones (I think they only appeared in Celtic Requiem and The Whale). I prefered him as a composer than Pärt, which from the Trilogy Pärt-Górecki-Tavener is the one I liked less. But I have one criticism to John Tavener. He had a lot of potential in the instrumentation but at the end many works were so so so so so minimalistic, that it is sad, and sometimes I feel it like a lost opportunity. For example, Total Eclipse, countertenor and soprano saxophone. But I wish there were more creative parts and combination of instruments and voices.
Fully agree. Music that goes nowhere and has next to no content. The Protecting Veil was over-hyped junk.
@@topologyrob Who am I blaming? What a strange comment. His music goes nowhere. A bit like the videos you have posted of your own "music"
I met him. Yes, he was phoney-baloney. I bought a disc of his music, but I could only like The Lamb.
Goodness, I finally agree with you 😎 Tavener wrote an unending stream of complete drivel, unlike his near namesake from the Renaissance, John Taverner, whose music is superb 🙏🏾🎶😎
At last! Someone calling a spade a spade! Actually using the word 'bad'. I couldn't agree more, but am a little concerned that your mention of him might provoke a reaction and a 'save-Taverner' movement. You're right though. So far he has vanished without trace and you could forget he had ever existed. 'Veil' is a standard mystical image and mystics just love anything that is hidden and unclear. I heard him interviewed once and he almost vanished in a cloud of smoke. There's one thing that mystics can't stand and that is clarity. I have subscribed on the basis of your opinion of Taverner. Please keep it up.
I think you're being harsh on TPV, I think it's a beautiful piece, with some actual changes of tempo and everything! But would agree about his other long form works; very long, very boring 😴
Didn't George Harrison kick-start Tavener's career with the recording of The Whale?
Some wonderful short choral works, but the major works bored me. However, I'm not "spiritual."
It was Ringo Starr. If I recall the Tavener biography correctly, he hired Roger Tavener (the composer's brother, who was working in the family's firm of building contractors which is still trading under the directorship of one of his children) to work on his home, and at one planning meeting, Roger produced a copy of the recording made at the premiere of "The Whale." Ringo found it exciting and suggested setting up meetings between John Tavener and John Lennon, with a view to pitching the work for release on the Apple label. Paul McCartney also became involved in the project in an administrative role. At the recording sessions, Ringo Starr played some percussion and at one of the more surreal moments grabbed a loudhailer and can be heard yelling ("... and cause suffocation!") while John Tavener played the organ part. Apple subsequently recorded "Celtic Requiem," "Nomine Jesu" and "Coplas Espanolas" on another LP, after which it appears that Tavener and the Beatles parted ways, although he remained close friends with Paul McCartney, contributing a short choral work ("Prayer for the Healing of the Sick") to the collection "A Garland for Linda" in memory of McCartney's wife after her death from cancer.
😄 😄😄 Tavener's April fool's Theos (oratorio ?/ liturgy ?) aside, actual Greek orthodox liturgy, when well performed, is capivating. There is a recording of Easter week litourgies on Mt Athos on DG, and other (a capella) recordings by others religious artists I found very beautiful.
No countertenors though...😄
As a member of my choir in secondary school I was forced to sing quite a lot of Tavener's choral music. I can safely say it was some of the most boring music I've ever had to sing. Fortunately we just as often sang works by Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart and Faure.
Same here. Awful stuff. Boredom personified.
Totally agree: a worse than mediocre composer who was lucky that quite a few people were willing to test their bladders and kid themselves that a drone for hours (with a bit of pentatonic orientalism and a bit of amateurish modernism occasionally thrown in) they were undergoing a deeply spiritual experience. Even in the UK he was a bit of a joke to many and the once-popular Protesting Wail (The Lark Ascending and Ascending and Ascending and Ascending a bit more) has thankfully disappeared into thin air.
I recall Prince Charles hailing Tavener as his favorite composer. I bet that alone got Tavener some extra media coverage in the UK.
@@anttivirolainen8223 It certainly did though I think Charlie's musical endorsements carry very little weight.
@@anttivirolainen8223 I do not think Prince Charles has much taste in all things.
@@mickeytheviewmoo I don't think so either.
@@henrygingercat maybe not with the cognoscenti, definitely with the press, the unsophisticated public and quasi-state institutions like the BBC
Now you've done it, Dave. Making fun of Gramophone is one thing, but now the British music press is going to put out a hit on you.
And I always mixed him up with John taverner
"Arvo Part with no talent." Touché.
I’ve never heard Tavener’s music, and based on this video I’ll keep things that way. A comment on the first video in this series describing Graunke as “Hindemith without all the laughs” still has me chuckling a few months later. And compliments to Mr. Vernier’s hilarious “review” as well - at least these composers are good for a few yucks.
Some of his small choral works are actually exquisite. He does not work quite so well on a large scale, it is true. I accept that criticism to some extent but there are ravishing moments in his shorter pieces.
I recall picking up a copy of Gorecki's Third Symphony second-hand; and being dismayed at its emptiness, the first movement grinding along aimlessly and forever. "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" is an alluring title, and is indeed the best part of the piece. Meditate on it for five minutes and then use the time saved to trim your toenails.
Thank you. I’ve always thought it was something wrong with me finding the symphony totally boring.
Gorecki's symphony is still a lot better than these empty Tavener knockoffs that use the same building blocks but without any idea why they're being used. Even though Gorecki's work is extraordinarily simple, it was built off of much more emotion and understanding of it than anything Tavener wrote.
@@topologyrob God? Maybe some of us don't believe in imaginary friends. Even if we did it wouldn't in any way make us enjoy the monotony of one of England's worst composers, would it? I'll stick with Tippett, Walton, Brian, Bliss, Arnold, VW, Britten, Elgar, Tallis and Rawsthorne to name but a few. At least the works of these composers go somewhere instead of being stuck in a never ending trance with next to no substance. I've tried to "embrace the the void that is The Protecting Veil" but all I hear is a void.
@@bannan61 Very well said. Whatever conception one might have of God, I would hope it isn't a void
@@topologyrob read on. Running in place is just that
I thought this was about John Taverner and was preparing my angry comment
So sorry to disappoint!
Holy minimalism doesn't float your boat, in general, David? Gorecki, Part, James McMillan, Vasks, Kancheli, etc. etc. - is it all kitsch, or is there anything worthwhile to be found there?
Kancheli is far from minimalist.
Pretty sounds without much substance, at least in my opinion. I can't help thinking that the spiritual aspect simply provides a fig leaf for the composer, an excuse to write some insanely monotonous and simplistic music.
Silly question. The composers you list have little to nothing in common.
@@ThreadBomb So is MacMillan.
James MacMillan is a composer of quite some substance: try his Mass, the percussion concerto ("Veni Emmanuel"), Seven Last Words, or Cantos Sagrados.
As an Anglican choral singer, I'd call Tavener a one-trick pony. The vertical symmetry of his polyphonic writing pays simple-minded homage to atonality, but just isn't interesting after the first couple of minutes. Song for Athene is one example, and a more frequently performed piece, The Lamb, milks the same approach.
While we're on the subject, another one-trick pony is Morton Lauridsen, who writes triads with an added ninth, and beyond that just apes plainchant. Lauridsen is beautiful for the first couple of minutes, and thereafter is stupefyingly boring and monotonous.
One other painfully monotonous piece, that was a fad for a while, is Franz Biebl's Ave Maria. It's beautiful at first, but painfully repetitive until about the last half-minute.
For me, Glass is right up there. Sorry if that rubs anyone the wrong way.
Apparently he is related to the Renaissance Taverner. According to him, anyway. You can find that reference in an interview somewhere. But the English always do like the idea of pedigree.
If in fact there is a connection, none of Taverner's immense talent rubbed off on his alleged descendant. There is more depth and beauty in 5 minutes of, say, the Western Wynde Mass than in all of Tavener's many, many hours.
I remember those Veil works.
I should've looked closer...I thought "What the heck is wrong with John Taverner?!?!" An extra "r" makes a lot of difference.
I really enjoy this take. One should allways be looking out for pompous, quasi spiritual posing. Too much of that stuff seducing people.
Well he is at least better then that guy you did the first video on. Graunke is worse then Tavener. People at least listen to Tavener. Nobody listens to Graunke.
Hilarious fake review! I sat through the premiere of Akathist of Thanksgiving in 1988 and certainly gave thanks when it was over. It's hard to remember now what an industry Holy Minimalism was in the 90s, thankfully a phase that now seems to have passed. Pärt apart, good riddance!
Sigh, ....I kept seeing performers going on about The Protecting Veil and then numerous performances popping up so I thought I'd try it. It was OK, but I was kind of missing it. I'd return every once in a while and still nothing. I suspect it was popular because it has a nice cello part and there are not enough cello works for all the extra cello players to record. Like you say, just trust your ears, not the hype. Thanks for letting me off the hook so I don't have to try and "get into this" again.
( next up: Eric Whitacre)
Tavener isn't one of my favorites, but I'm not really into choral music very much. However, to call him BAD is really not warranted. There are lots and lots of far worse composers. Guys who wouldn't know a melody or beautiful harmony if their lives depended on it. Tavener is at least listenable. You want bad? Look at Roger Sessions, Michael Tippett, PIerre Boulez, Rene Leibowitz...and an endless list of mid-20th century scribblers.
He was BAD. Really, really BAD. The fact that there are those who your think are worse doesn't mean he wasn't BAD. It just means that there are lots of BAD composers. Maybe if you're lucky I'll pick one of yours someday. Then someone else will say that pick really isn't BAD. And so it goes. Yawn.
I wouldn't describe Tippett as a "scribbler" - there's quite a lot of brilliant work by him, if you know where to look for it...
@@markswintonorganist8227 Tippett is definitely an interesting composer, and was a fine exemplar of humanity. Artistically, I think he was weakest as his own librettist.
HAHAHAHAHAHAH the "review" 🤣🤣🤣
Thank you Dave. I may annoy people as much as you like to sometimes but I really cannot, cannot (emphasis) stand this sort of music that was so extolled back in the day. Reactionary rubbish. I can really appreciate Arvo Part but even that is a stretch. Dubious, supposedly crowd pleasing "tonal" nonsense, and the "Royal associations" here just make it that much more worse. I'd be gasping, frankly, for Chronochomie or Sur Incises, or absolutely anything by Ligeti after sitting through this! Now, you haven't done a single video about Ligeti, who you obviously rate as a composer, so maybe we could not waste our time on this nonsense and hear about that? All best
We have to hear about everything, eventually. I haven't talked about Ligeti because I will need to play samples and, other than the Etudes, I haven't seen much coming out lately. But we'll see.
@@DavesClassicalGuide totally understand. Most of it even now is on the old “major labels” who won’t do this for you. So better to wait I guess. Seems a shame, 1000+ videos in, not to say something focused re him though.
Having watched (and thank you so much) most of those 1000+ videos though, I know you have a bit of a theory about a composer’s works tending to not get attention for a while after they pass away. I’m sure there are some other counter examples, but I don’t think you could say the same of Ligeti, which says something, the recordings only seem to be accelerating.
Something that touches people was clearly going on there
@@topologyrob Of course I have a clue, i I’m reporting what I think, not what you think (6 months ago apparently). As for “tonal” and religiosity, mine are contextual judgments about shifts in music since the 1960s (and it is certainly in part a “reaction”). I wouldn’t say this, for example, about 18th century music.
@@topologyrob I don’t think that. Just as heterosexual relationships, for example, are massively the norm. Robert, now I’m apparently “sheltered”, as though I’m not aware of broadly tonal musics. I don’t think this is a very productive kind of discussion as you’re apparently trying to take pot shots at me (literally, in your last post). What exactly are your arguments here otherwise? If you don’t really have any, I’d really prefer you stop.
@@topologyrob oh dear. You’re objecting because I don’t like the music. That’s all it is.
As I said, please stop sending me these (rather out of date) messages. That’s the last time I’m saying that.
I happened across some of Tavener's "music" fairly recently, not having been all that familiar with him. The works put me into a funk for several days. I worry for those enjoy this music.
@@topologyrob Quite contradictory wouldn't you say? A bereft person would be much more likely to enjoy his plodding and banal 'music'.
Also what helped Tavener was that he was a friend of the country's biggest pseud Prince Charles!
underrated observation
It might be an unpopular opinion, I might be elitist or exaggerated, but to me people like Tavener, Pärt and post-youth Gorecki are more New-Age producers than proper Classical composers.
That is a perfectly fair point of view, but it depends on one's definition of what constitutes "classical" music. I would agree with your proposition to the extent that no "modern" music can properly be called "classical." It's simply music written using performance media or formal strategies in common with the things that we do call classical. With that said, I also don't believe it is for us to decide that such works are NOT classical. That will be determined by future generations of listeners as part of the ongoing winnowing process that decides what the "true classics" really are. I prefer to think of these pieces as music in large forms, or "art music" (I hate that term too for obvious reasons), or music written in a certain style.
John Riutter also ranks up there.
Really? I played in a couple of concerts of his works and he was delightful.
@@Lee-sd4qg When I was in the upper sixth form, we didn't need any excuse to slope off to the pub ;)