Reviews

Tavener Eternity’s Sunrise

TAVENER
Eternity’s Sunrise
Funeral Canticle
Petra: A Ritual Dream,
Sappho: Lyrical Fragments
Song of the Angel

Patricia Rozario, Julia Gooding (sopranos)
George Mosley (baritone)
Andrew Manze (violin)
The Academy of Ancient Music Chorus and Orchestra/Paul Goodwin
Harmonia Mundi HMU 907231
(65 minutes: DDD).

Here are reviews of this recording by Michael Oliver then one by Rob Cowan, both writing in Gramaphone magazine.

The subtitle of John Tavener’s Petra is ‘a ritual dream’; much of his music is dream-like and ritualized, the music of a mystic. To his admirers any complaint that it is oversimplified, repetitive and uneventful is meaningless; as well complain that the Mass is formless or that there is insufficient dramatic contrast in the Creed. ‘Hypnotic’ is an adjective often applied to his music, but there are temperaments that resist hypnosis, just as there are listeners who want music that demands listening rather than contemplation. Eternity’s Sunrise takes pairs of lines by Blake, sets the first to a rapt, chant-like phrase and the second to a more active one, separating them by a sweet Alleluia with a fuller accompaniment. This happens four times, and the anti-hypnotic temperament, after noting that there is no reason why it should not have been repeated six times, ungratefully concludes that there is no imperative need to repeat it at all. Eternity’s Sunrise lasts 11 minutes, but Funeral Canticle uses simpler material, subject to similar processes, and goes on for 24 minutes. A solemn, time-denying ritual that must have been heart-easing at the funeral of Tavener’s father, for which it was written. The anti-hypnotic temperament feels mean at finding it boring.
Yet many of us have been moved when witnessing a religious rite that we barely under-stand, and yes: I was moved, intermittently, by the quiet ritual exchanges of Petra. Listening to Mozart in the beautiful Church of the Holy Peace in Istanbul I remember thinking that the space demanded a different music. Tavener’s music, possibly, but I would need different ears from those I use for Mozart. Those with a religious faith, or who are hungering or nostalgic for faith, perhaps have those ears already. They will find these performances ideal (Patricia Rozario’s voice is wonderfully pure and her breath control remarkable) and the acoustic of Temple Church in London is finely caught. Other temperaments will prefer Tavener’s earlier Sappho; in a style that might be terined ‘minimal-serial’ it is more eventful than the four other works on this disc put together.
Michael Oliver, Gramophone May 1999

Once upon a time we dreamt of breaking down musical barriers, but nowadays we can happily recount how many have been broken. This particular venture reconciles genres and generations on various fronts — between father and son, religious denominations, old and new musical modes, poetry and liturgy, and old instruments newly employed. The title-piece was bom in the wake of loss. Tavener’s late father was its prompting inspiration, and Diana, Princess of Wales its dedicatee. The tonal structure is simple: earth is represented by the solo soprano, angels by hand bells and heaven by a modest instrumental ensemble. The euphonious drone of period strings is occasionally spiced by Eastern-style modulations, whereas florid embellishments to the solo line (miraculously surveyed here by Patricia Rozario, for example at 2'05") are playfully chased by the woodwinds. Eternity’s Sunrise is deceptively simple, brighter than Bryars, more sensual than Pärt, rendered especially appealing in this context by Harnionia Mundi’s vivid recording. Tavener devotees will love it.
The brief and warmly harmonized Song of the Angel for soprano and solo violin is set further distance but works well. Petra: A Ritual Dream calls on the Greek poet Giorgios Seferis to help reinvent the transcendent (represented, in terms of music, by violin harmonics). George Mosley intones the text, backed by a small chorus, and the musical language fits a colourist grid that will be familiar to fans of Pärt and, in particular, Kancheli. Some of Tavener’s word setting is fairly dramatic (witness ‘Night without limit/your blood spreads white wings’ with its shimmering strings accompaniment, at 4'18"), and there is a folkloric slant to selected melodic lines.
Tavener’s Sappho: Lyrical Fragments (1981), the earliest work on the programme, is set for two sopranos with brief instrumental interludes between sections. Mysterious yet gripping, the Fragments owe something to Stravinsky (of, say, Apollo) whereas the last and longest piece on the disc – the Funeral Canticle for Tavener’s father – cradles its texts between disparate styles, from plainchant to a reassuring variation on the Bach-style chorale. Could this be the son holding the father’s hand, or vice versa? Whatever the unconscious subtext (if indeed there is any), Funeral Canticle strikes me as the most durable piece on a CD that, to quote Blake, seeks ‘Eternity in an hour’.
Rob Cowan Gramophone May 1999