The Towards Silence Project: Multiple String Quartets Organize to Perform a New Musical Form in Spatially Variable and Distributed Conditions

This case describes an example of a collective making process in the field of performing arts. In 2009, multiple string quartets (many considered world class) organized to perform a new musical composition by Sir John Tavener. The composition challenged four quartets at a time to perform as an integrated ensemble while sitting apart, in various configurations, and at spatial distances up to 70 feet. The process unfolded in three phases: pre-rehearsals of the first group of quartets in the United Kingdom (UK), a series of rehearsals leading to one premiere performance by the second group of quartets in New York, and a series of rehearsals integrated with additional performances in four distinct venues in the UK. Mid-way through the process, the musicians chose to integrate a simple coordinating technology into their process, to address the difficulties produced by distance. This telling of the case story describes what the musicians did to achieve these unprecedented performances, given the unusual circumstances, emphasizing how they made decisions and evaluated their work along the way. The case is based on comprehensive fieldwork, including observation, interviews, spatial measurement and diagramming, questionnaires, and analysis of videotape of the rehearsal process.

The Idea of an ‘Icon in Sound’ in the Works of John Tavener

The aim of this article is to present an innovative concept of the ‘icon in sound’ created by the English composer John Tavener. The first part of the article presents the intermedial and intertextual features of Tavener's work, the second shows the genesis of the concept of ‘icon in sound’, to which three factors have contributed: 1) the composer’s interest in religious topics in his pieces, 2) the composer’s conversion to Orthodoxy, 3) collaboration with Mother Tekla, the author of the texts of many Tavener’s works. The last, third part of the article describes issues related to the formal structure and musical symbolism present in Tavener’s musical icons. The composer refers to painted icons by composing works characterised by static form and the expression of spirituality, mysticism and inner peace. These features result from the juxtaposing of melismatic structures, inspired by Byzantine music, with repetitive technique and dynamics often characterised by a low intensity. One characteristic of Tavener’s sound icons is a ‘luminous’ sound, achieved through the use of high registers of voices and instruments, which are combined with contemplative and lyrical expression. An important feature of John Tavener’s musical icons was the introduction of archaic elements, resulting primarily from the inspiration that the composer drew from the musical culture of the Orthodox Church (eg the use of Byzantine scales in Mary of Egypt, the introduction of instruments such as simantron in Mary of Egypt).

Tavener, John Kenneth (1944–2013)

John Tavener was an English composer. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where his composition teachers were Lennox Berkeley and David Lumsdaine. His earliest success was with the cantata The Whale, first performed at the inaugural concert of the London Sinfonietta in 1968. This was followed by Celtic Requiem in 1969. Both works were recorded on the Beatles’ Apple label. Tavener began teaching at Trinity College in 1969. Tavener was extremely prolific. Among his most significant compositions of the following decades are ÚltimosRitos (1972), the opera Thérèse (1973–76), Akhmatova: Requiem (1979–80), Ikon of Light (1984), Orthodox Vigil Service (1984), and Akathist of Thanksgiving (1986–87). The huge unexpected success of The Protecting Veil for solo cello and orchestra (1987) brought his music to the attention of a wider audience than ever before. Subsequent large-scale works of significance are Resurrection (1989), Apocalypse (1993), Fall and Resurrection (1997), Total Eclipse (1999), The Veil of the Temple (2001), Laila (2004), Sollemnitas in ConceptioneImmaculataBeataeMariaeVirginis (2006) and Requiem (2007). Tavener was knighted in the 2000 honours list.

SAVING FAITH: STOCKHAUSEN AND SPIRITUALITY

ABSTRACTInvited in 2011 by Robert Sholl and Sander van Maas to contribute to a proposed symposium on the spiritual in late twentieth-century music, I accepted, not because I agreed with the project and its aims, but to defend Stockhausen's character and reputation from convenient misrepresentation. Sin and virtue, spirituality and the spiritual life ask to be addressed in terms of actual works and personal witness – in my own case, not least given the composer's complaint late in life: ‘You have to watch out for Maconie's nihilism’. The test of spirituality inevitably entails scrutinizing the motives of former Stockhausen disciples who changed their minds, among them two English composers of my own generation, Jonathan Harvey and John Tavener, who have since passed away. In 2014 the opening sentence of the present paper provided theologian and Stockhausen-forum editor Thomas Ulrich with an amusing starting-point (‘Suffering? How very Protestant!’) for just the second of a trickle of online discussions of largely pathetic inconsequence.

Mediation and The Marketplace

Providing first a comprehensive history of spiritual minimalism– the extraordinarily successful phenomenon that made unlikely stars of Henryk Górecki, Arvo Pärt, and John Tavener in the early 1990s–this chapter makes the case that by the end of the 20th century new music had entered into a new and transformative relationship with the media and the commercial market, through new listening practices such as soundtracking, and through marketing towards new audiences. This is supported by discussions of composers and collectives that have particularly engaged with these, including Bang on a Can, Nonclassical and, in particular, Edition Wandelweiser.

John Tavener Flood of Beauty, Barbican Centre, London

‘The East is a career’, states Mr Coningsby somewhat laconically to Lord Henry Sydney in Benjamin Disraeli's 1847 novel Tancred. This line was (perhaps more famously) employed as an epigram by Edward Said in his Orientalism, which made a prescient and penetrating historical critique of the West's portrayal of Asian and Middle Eastern cultures as exotic ‘others’.

BBC PROMS 2014: Panufnik and Tavener

Cultures collide and combine in the new works presented in the opening weeks of the 2014 BBC Proms. In music by Roxanna Panufnik and Sir John Tavener, ideas from different religious traditions are brought together. Both composers acknowledge the resulting tensions, but seek to transcend them. Various resolutions are proposed, and with them models for mutual understanding. Utopian ideals, indeed, and none of the works quite reach the lofty goals to which they aspire; but, in each case, the journey proves more interesting than the destination.