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!

​@@erikdaumann8589How right you are. This music has helped me through many hard times in life. Whenever I can't pray anymore I listen to Tavener's 'Love bade me welcome', and it gives me hope.

@@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....

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.

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

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.

you are so right, madam. God bless you!

​@@DavesClassicalGuideno need to be that nastily arrogant...

@@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!🌸🪷🌷

Yes, it's a lovely piece. I like the sequel too, "The Protecting Veal."

@@DavesClassicalGuide Lol.

@@DavesClassicalGuide my word

Same for me

@@DavesClassicalGuide 🤣

💯🎯👍

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 rather disrespectful to call works of art you do not like as "dreck", meaning dirt in its original language. That's what happened to artists in Germany between 1933 and 1945.

It’s absolutely outrageous to bring up ghastly world history in a jovial conversation about music!

Bruckner was actually a composer.

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.

Some of them are. I like a lot of their music.

It's your nickel.

That’s right! Love your posts by the way!

Was that fair to @real@ wallpaper?

The pattern certainly repeats itself a lot.

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.

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.

Look up "Frau Blucher" on KZfaq (from "Young Frankenstein")

Ha! Now I see... That's really funny.

We just did that with Leroy Anderson. You don't have to be mediocre to achieve recognition and remuneration withing your own lifetime.

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

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.

Carl Jung calls atheism the modern urban neurosis. Spirituality is lost on some of its earliest proponents.

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!

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.

remember Stephen Hawkings book? much bought rarely read

Philip Glass - another master...

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 say that about Shostakovich and Weinberg string quartets all the time!

You know, that's actually a very astute attitude.

As well he should have. We were both merely being truthful.

@@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"

...conducted by Nazgûl Snezick-Yeggin, of course.

Of course!

I wonder if Lord Aragorn was in attendance that day !

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

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 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

Yes. Fully agree. Part with no talent!!

That work is not by John Tavener but by John TaveRner an english renaissance composer

Different John Taverner from way back

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.

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...

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.

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.

@@rsmickeymooproductions4877 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

Kurt Graunke.

So sorry to disappoint!

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.

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.

Same here. Awful stuff. Boredom personified.

im dead LMAO

@@topologyrob Quite contradictory wouldn't you say? A bereft person would be much more likely to enjoy his plodding and banal 'music'.

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

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.

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.

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 do. 😂 and I'm not nobody...

underrated observation

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 ;)

​@@DavesClassicalGuideREALLY REALLY REALLY...

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.