John Tavener
Sir John Kenneth Tavener (28 January 1944 – 12 November 2013) was an English composer, known for his extensive output of choral religious works. Among his best known works are The Lamb (1982), The Protecting Veil (1988), and Song for Athene (1993).
For the 16th-century composer, see John Taverner. For other people, see John Tavener (disambiguation).Tavener first came to prominence with his cantata The Whale, premiered in 1968. Then aged 24, he was described by The Guardian as "the musical discovery of the year",[1] while The Times said he was "among the very best creative talents of his generation".[2] During his career he became one of the best known and popular composers of his generation, most particularly for The Protecting Veil, which as recorded by cellist Steven Isserlis became a best-selling album, and Song for Athene which was sung at the funeral of Princess Diana.[3] The Lamb featured in the soundtrack for Paolo Sorrentino's film The Great Beauty.[4] Tavener wrote the composition A New Beginning to commemorate the Millennium celebrations on New Year's Eve, 1999, during the opening of the Millennium Dome in London. Tavener was knighted in 2000 for his services to music and won an Ivor Novello Award,[5] and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by Sarum College in 2001.[6]
Early life and education[edit]
Tavener was born on 28 January 1944 in Wembley, London.[7] His parents ran a family building firm[3] and his father was also an organist at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Frognal, Hampstead.[8] At the age of 12, Tavener was taken to Glyndebourne to hear Mozart's The Magic Flute, a work he loved for the rest of his life.[9] That same year he heard Stravinsky's most recent work, Canticum Sacrum, which he later described as "the piece that woke me up and made me want to be a composer".[9]
Tavener became a music scholar at Highgate School (where a fellow pupil was John Rutter).[10] The school choir was often employed by the BBC in works requiring boys' voices, so Tavener gained choral experience singing in Mahler's Third Symphony and Orff's Carmina Burana.[9] He started to compose at Highgate, and also became a sufficiently proficient pianist to perform the second and third movements of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto and, in 1961 with the National Youth Orchestra, Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2.[9] He also became organist and choirmaster in 1961 at St John's Presbyterian Church, Kensington (now St Mark's Coptic Orthodox Church),[11] a post he held for 14 years.[9]
Tavener entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1962, where his tutors included Sir Lennox Berkeley.[3][9] During his studies there he decided to give up the piano and devote himself to composition.[9]
The Whale and early operas[edit]
Tavener first came to prominence in 1968 with his dramatic cantata The Whale, based on the Old Testament story of Jonah.[3] It was premièred at the London Sinfonietta's début concert,[3] which was also the opening concert of the Queen Elizabeth Hall.[12] Tavener's younger brother, Roger, was then doing some building work on Ringo Starr's home and, gaining the musician's interest, persuaded the Beatles to have The Whale recorded by Apple Records and released in 1970.[3] The following year Tavener began teaching at Trinity College of Music, London.[8] Other works by Tavener released by Apple included his A Celtic Requiem, which impressed Benjamin Britten enough to persuade Covent Garden to commission an opera from Tavener.[3] The ultimate result, to a libretto by playwright Gerard McLarnon, was Thérèse: when staged in 1979 the opera was thought too static to be a successful drama.[3]
Tavener had also been deeply affected by his brief 1974 marriage to the Greek dancer Victoria Maragopoulou.[3][9] His chamber opera A Gentle Spirit (1977), with a libretto by McLarnon based on a story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, concerns a pawnbroker whose marriage fails to the extent that his wife commits suicide. It has been deemed "far superior to Thérèse, with the internal drama more suited to the stage".[3] Significantly, it also touched on Russian Orthodoxy, to which McLarnon had been a convert for several years.[3]
Conversion to Orthodox Christianity[edit]
Tavener converted to the Orthodox Church in 1977.[13] Orthodox theology and liturgical traditions became a major influence on his work. He was particularly drawn to its mysticism, studying and setting to music the writings of Church Fathers and completing a setting of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the principal eucharistic liturgy of the Orthodox Church: this was Tavener's first directly Orthodox-inspired music.[14]
Personal life[edit]
In 1974 he married the Greek dancer Victoria Maragopoulou, but it only lasted eight months.[3][9] In 1991 he married Maryanna Schaefer with whom he had three children, Theodora, Sofia and Orlando.[3][24] He had considerable health problems throughout his life. He had a stroke in his thirties, heart surgery and the removal of a tumour in his forties, and had two successive heart attacks which left him frail.[25] He was diagnosed with Marfan syndrome in 1990.[3][26][27] Lady Tavener broadcast a charity appeal on BBC Radio 4 in October 2008 on behalf of the Marfan Trust.[28]
Tavener had an interest in classic cars, owning an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire, a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, a Jaguar XJ6 and a white Bentley Mulsanne Turbo.[29] He was also noted for wearing a white suit.[30][31]
Death and legacy[edit]
Tavener died, aged 69, on 12 November 2013 at his home in Child Okeford, Dorset.[32] Among those in the music world who paid tribute were composers John Rutter[32] and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies,[32] cellist Steven Isserlis,[32] Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, oboist Nicholas Daniel, Roger Wright (controller of BBC Radio 3 and director of the Proms), and soprano Patricia Rozario. A tribute was also received from Charles, Prince of Wales.[32]
Tavener's funeral was held at Winchester Cathedral on 28 November 2013. The service was conducted in the Orthodox rite and was presided over by Archbishop Gregorios of Thyateira, representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch and the most senior Orthodox bishop in the UK. About 700 mourners attended.[33]
Rutter describes Tavener as having the "very rare gift" of being able to "bring an audience to a deep silence."[32] According to Isserlis: "He had his own voice. He wasn't writing to be popular – he was writing the music he had to write."[32]
Musical style[edit]
While Tavener's earliest music was influenced by Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen – often invoking the sound world of Stravinsky, in particular Canticum Sacrum,[3] and the ecstatic quality found in various works by Messiaen – his later music became more sparse, using wide registral space and was usually diatonically tonal.[8] Tavener recognised Arvo Pärt as "a kindred spirit" and shared with him a common religious tradition and a fondness for textural transparency.[10]
