John Tavener: Mother And Child

Commissioned for Tenebrae and their director Nigel Short. John Tavener writes:'Mother and Child celebrates the miracle of childbirth. It also celebrates Mary in her universal aspect as mother of all Prophets andco-redemptress with Christ. But behind all this is the Theophanic Light single and infinite and the same in every Religious tradition. The music is at once tender ecstatic and luminous and follows the text. I have interpolatedinto Brian Keeble’s poem texts celebrating the Eternal feminine in Greek and then at the climax an outburst in Sanskrit of ATMA. This is supreme Reality the true Self shining and infinite the one single God expressedin music by pulsating awesome strokes on the Hindu Temple Gong with organ and choir in massive blocks. This seems to say that the real ‘Mother and Child’ are both beyond birth and beyond death and beyond time.'

An original and exciting collection of anthems and other choral pieces written for the Orthodox Church and inspired by the Church in Russia, selected by Ralph Allwood. Partly because of the re-emergence of the Church in the former Soviet Union, interest in Christian musical sources alternative to the great body of the Anglican and other Western Christian traditions has grown sharply in recent years. Though the works presented here may be unfamiliar, they are all masterly. Designed to appeal to choirs of various levels, the collection includes a Kontakion and Ikos for the funeral service, anthems by Great Russian Romantics: Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Grechaninov - and composers from our age: Stravinsky, Schnittke, or Arvo Part speaking for a tradition outside the Orthodox Church, as well as settings of the Lord's Prayer in both Russian and English by John Tavener. / Chant Et Piano

This singing tableau for voices instruments and children is based on the story of the Dormition of the mother of God as recounted in the Apocryphal Gospel of St. John. The work uses an adult choir and instrumental group andchildren who enact the story in highly stylised mime sequences.Vocal Score with piano reduction of the orchestra score. Duration c. 60mins.