A thread for John Taverner

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I only have Akathist of Thanksgiving but I enjoy it very much, listening to it now (after some early live A Certain Ratio, I can only guess what the connection in my brain was). All other suggestions welcomed.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 01:20 (twenty years ago)

Oops, sorry about the wayward italics there.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 01:25 (twenty years ago)

I Prefer John Taverner (1490 - 1545). John Tavener (1944 -) (one 'r')
I don't like much. His ideas about the developement of music (ie Beethoven ruined everything) are somewhat batshit, too.

― Masked Gazza, Wednesday, 15 June 2005 02:14 (twenty years ago)

I love that song he composed for Björk... "Prayer for the Heart." Definitely her best vocal performace, if you're interested I could YSI.

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 02:16 (twenty years ago)

A Greek friend of mine once went to one of his concerts because he thought his mates said 'John's Taverna'.

― Masked Gazza, Wednesday, 15 June 2005 02:17 (twenty years ago)

Well, you didn't ask but it YSI'd anyway.

John Tavener & Björk - Prayer for the Heart:

http://s40.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=24DWECAWL96TB385XLDUZ5HTHI

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 02:33 (twenty years ago)

There's some really nice stuff* on the retrospective thing that Björk track features on. And some mad stuff... I find the whole choral attack pieces as impenetrable as the hardest jazz. And I wonder what it would take for me to 'get' them & enjoy them in the spirit intended. Other than reading liner notes.

That CD has been in my 'give a proper listen to' pile for so long. Largely because the quiet parts are well.. so quiet that it's not suitable for headphone listening on the PC. Too much line noise :-(

*I'm not going to claim any kind of serious knowledge of classical, it, like jazz is something I've somehow managed to avoid a serious invesigation of for a much-too-long time. Techno is my jazz to all intents & purposes.

― fandango (fandango), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 14:07 (twenty years ago)

Wasn't he the first (only?) classical composer on the Beatles' Apple label?

― Paul outta Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 15:14 (twenty years ago)

Apple put out The Whale... there's a scurvy free-for-all section on side 2 that caught my attention, I should listen to it again.

― milton parker (Jon L), Wednesday, 15 June 2005 17:38 (twenty years ago)

eight years pass...

Died today apparently:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24919332

― gotta lol geir (NickB), Tuesday, 12 November 2013 17:33 (twelve years ago)

only 69 :-/

― I like to think I have learnt a thing or two about music (Neil S), Tuesday, 12 November 2013 17:39 (twelve years ago)

guilty lol

In 1992, he was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize - and again in 1997 - ultimately losing out to Primal Scream and drum and bass producer Roni Size.

― I like to think I have learnt a thing or two about music (Neil S), Tuesday, 12 November 2013 17:41 (twelve years ago)

A memory from Patrick Fitzgerald of the Kitchens of Distinction:

A few years ago Patricia Rozario - the Anglo-Indian soprano muse of Sir John Tavener - performed his song cycle of poems by WB Yeats ("To A Child Dancing In The Wind for soprano, flute, harp and viola") in the very church where Yeats is buried in Drumcliffe, County Sligo, Ireland. The crows were cawing loudly in the graveyard outside as the sun was setting when she sang. During the performance she clapped her hands and stamped her wedge-heeled feet as part of the score whilst wandering up and down the aisle. Her voice was unlike anything we had heard before or since and the four of us sat there enrapt. The harp was plucked furiously and the viola played very, very slowly. The song "Two Years Later" is part of that song cycle. It is, in one simple word, ASTOUNDING
Sir John Tavener, we salute you

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 12 November 2013 18:49 (twelve years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMrxJfvSnn8

― smoking, drinking, cracking and showing the MIDDLE FINGER (DJP), Tuesday, 12 November 2013 19:29 (twelve years ago)

I was at Diana's funeral (in my professional capacity) and I never thought I'd be so directly and deeply affected and moved by music as I was by the performance of "Song For Athene" and by the ceremony and the history surrounding it. The sensation was different from when I was a kid and my father played me The Whale, but the spiritual line was deep and unbroken.

I know he had suffered some terrible pain in recent years (he had Marfan syndrome, a genetic condition which makes one vulnerable to heart defects) so I suppose it is a mercy that he is now free from that.

I will miss him terribly. Another person from 6 September 1997 who is no longer with us... :-(

― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin), Tuesday, 12 November 2013 20:00 (twelve years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55sH_gUqW-Q

Kicking myself for only having heard the name and not looking into it until now

― cardamon, Wednesday, 13 November 2013 02:06 (twelve years ago)

my choir is doing his "village wedding" at our two upcoming shows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGD279ND6aQ

― Atomized Laphroaig (get bent), Wednesday, 13 November 2013 02:21 (twelve years ago)

I'm somehow finding links to Lucien Freud's paintings in this music, I don't know if I'm way off there

― cardamon, Wednesday, 13 November 2013 02:46 (twelve years ago)

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