does anyone know anything about Tavener?

i'm not a singer, but is he as big in the singing world as John Rutter?

i recently had a listening exercise in A level music on John Tavener's "The Lamb" and have just bought his album, "The John Tavener Collection".

the Lamb especially is such an amazing piece of music, im not really that heavily into choral stuff, but it just blew me away.

Who's Tavener?

John Tavener born 1944
The enormous popularity of Tavener's music during recent years is sustained well beyond his 50th birthday year - 1994 - marked by a major BBC Festival devoted to his music. Performances of The Protecting Veil have taken place in the USA, Canada, Greece, Sweden and Japan.
Plenty more on google.
Not to be confused with the earlier John Taverner 1495? -1545 who also wrote choral music.

I would guess that internationally John Tavener may be at least as well known as John Rutter.

Maggie

Ive done that listening exercise! hehe. But i had an advantage, ive sung it before! Our senoir choir at school sang it. I didnt think it was that amazing, but that was because the senoir choir isnt very good! having heard it, it is! I dont know much about the man himself though.

QUOTE (Subatomic_Star @ Dec 4 2004, 02:40 PM)

Who's Tavener?

He is sometimes compared with Arvo Pärt and Henryk Górecki; people who lack enthusiasm for this music call them the "holy modal yodellers".

That's sooooooooo harsh! I never used to like choral music so much (please don't all hunt me down at once!), probably due to my dad's obsession with the mediaeval babes. Tavener's changed my mind tho, its gorgeous music, and I never knew Acapella stuff could sound so good.

I love singing a capella!!! it's the funnest, most amazing thing!

I got into Tavener when I went to the St Cuthbert's Day evensong in Durham Cathedral... there's this awesome pieces called (if I remember correctly) the ikon of st cuthbert, or something similar, it sounded absolutely amazing in the cathedral, and the recording of it I have is also quite cool. I have the Akhmatova Requiem set to music by him too, which is amazing poetry (I studied it at uni), and a Cello cd called Svyiati (or similar) with Simon Isserlis. It's not the most accessible music in the world, but some of it is AMAZING!

ive done that stupid listening test too!

Ah wow, I love Tavener!!!!!!! I'm in the chamber choir in college and christmas 2003 we performed the lamb and it gave me shivers and just last christmas we performed god is with us! I love it!!!!! It was so so so goooood esp with the mad organ near the end! just soooo fab!!!!

You have to really undertand about his life and his beliefs if you really want to undertand why he writes in the way he does. I like some of his stuff, but some is just beyond me.
David

Have you read his biogtaphy? Thought it was very interesting, and very revealing, but I'm not so sure I like him after reading it. However, it is only one person's perception of him.... He is extremely talented, and writes some very wonderful music.