MISSA WELLENSIS MISSA WELLENSIS duration, none longer than 25 minutes. These JOHN TAVENER (1944-2013) late-flowering pieces marked a step away from Death came close to John Tavener in December the expansive gestures present in much Missa Wellensis * 2007. The composer, in Switzerland for the of his music of the early 2000s; they also 1 Kyrie [6.06] first performance of his Mass of the encompassed a refinement of Tavener’s 2 Gloria [5.42] Immaculate Conception, was struck by a heart universalist outlook, part of a personal quest 3 Sanctus and Benedictus [3.01] 4 Agnus Dei [2.15] attack that knocked him into a coma for Sophia perennis or the perennial wisdom and demanded emergency surgery. When he common to all religious traditions. 5 The Lord’s Prayer [2.19] regained consciousness, Tavener the convalescent 6 Love bade me welcome [6.02] discovered that the familiar fervour of his The works of Tavener’s final years, including 7 Preces and Responses Part One * [2.07] faith in God was no longer there; he had the Missa Wellensis and Preces and Responses Cantor: Iain MacLeod-Jones (tenor) also lost his desire to write music. Tavener’s for Wells Cathedral, were driven by an intention 8 Psalm 121: I Will Lift up Mine Eyes unto the Hills [5.17] long recovery at home, a trial endured for to recover the essence of sacred or spiritual Magnificat and Nunc dimittis ‘Collegium Regale’ three years, was marked by physical weakness texts, to renew their vitality and immediacy, 9 Magnificat [7.25] and extreme pain and their correlates, to connect with their deepest claims to truth. 0 Nunc dimittis [3.41] inactivity and depression. While the former During his recovery he had listened to the q Preces and Responses Part Two * [9.39] remained constant companions for the rest of Mass of the Immaculate Conception and later Cantor: Iain MacLeod-Jones his life, the latter gradually dissolved. recalled being disturbed by the way its music w Song for Athene [6.42] had haunted his subconscious mind following e Prayer for the healing of the sick [9.00] The spiritual life, tested to destruction by surgery in Zurich. “I was disturbed also by Solo: Christopher Sheldrake (bass) Tavener’s heart attack, returned with force the almost mad daring I had taken with texts r They are all gone into the world of light [3.43] and clarity as he began once again to listen from the Hindus, Muslims, American Indians t Preces and Responses Final Responses * [0.44] to music; it was propelled by the falling away as well as setting the Mass in its entirety Cantor: Iain MacLeod-Jones of old anxieties, and found its full expression interspersed with tantric poems about the Total timings: [73.43] in a flood of late compositions, austere works Virgin Mary.” * World Premiere Recording stripped of all superfluous ornament and excess. Tavener completed over twenty pieces Tavener found his way back to composition WELLS CATHEDRAL CHOIR between 2010 and his death in November by setting texts rooted in mankind’s need for MATTHEW OWENS 2013, several little more than 90 seconds in meaning. Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan www.signumrecords.com - 3 - Ilyich and Shakespeare’s sonnets spoke to the re-sounded in great chordal blocks hewn from It was first heard at Wells Cathedral on 18 May a liturgical context, evoking Eucharist through composer of the test of pain and illness and simple harmonic material. 2014, with the Creed spoken by the congregation. the Mass, the Lord’s Prayer and a Communion the value of unconditional love. There was Tavener telescopes his setting of the Sanctus, motet in the form of Love bade me welcome, and no ‘mad daring’ about the texts he chose for The Kyrie’s opening plea for mercy is shared by Hosanna and Benedictus into a single outlining the musical monuments of Choral the succession of predominantly choral or the two choirs, the first echoed by the second movement of concentrated energy, reserving the Evensong with Tavener’s Preces and Responses, vocal works that followed; rather, he turned in a canon at the unison launched at a half work’s most exuberant rhythmic writing for the Psalm 121 and Magnificat and Nunc dimittis most often to words that express ancient bar’s distance. Its initial treble line and Sanctus, recycling the music of the Kyrie to ‘Collegium Regale’. Song for Athene appears as wisdom in simple terms: A Buddhist Miniature, prevailing choral sonorities call to mind the carry the two Hosannas, and addressing an anthem in the Evensong sequence, Prayer for example, conveys a verse from the Kyrie of Bruckner’s Second Mass. The central the mystery of the Benedictus with simple for the healing of the sick stands in lieu of Dhammapada, ‘Cease to do evil’; the carol O Christe, more introspective than the movement’s harmonies made complex by the use of spoken prayers, while They are all gone into the that we were there! projects a longing to outlying Kyries, continues the process of canon. The Agnus Dei opens with a twelve-note world of light serves as a final blessing. access eternal time and space; A New canonic repetition, albeit subtly varied in melody shared between the unison trebles Commandment and If ye love me, to words structure. Tavener recalls the music of the and tenors of both choirs; it concludes with a Tavener’s contribution to the repertoire of preces from St John’s Gospel, deliver a core opening Kyrie but stops short of a full quotation from O vos omnes, one of Victoria’s and responses, written for unaccompanied Christian message. repetition, casting sound into silence and Tenebrae Responsories, stated in choir one and double choir, complements early landmarks liberating his ‘monumental, majestic’ Gloria from echoed in unison by choir two at the distance of the genre by Tallis and Tomkins and more When Matthew Owens proposed that Tavener the void. Choirs one and two once more share of one full bar. The purity of Victoria’s recent examples by Kenneth Leighton and might consider setting the Latin Mass for a unison canon, stated either at the polyphony, the very sounding of the composing Gabriel Jackson (the latter also premiered Wells Cathedral Choir, the composer was so distance of a half or full bar. The consequent priest’s profound personal faith, complements by Owens). The opening section of his inspired that he almost completed the work blurring of individual parts and creation of and completes Tavener’s Mass for Wells. Preces and Responses rests on a reiterated before it had been contracted. Missa Wellensis a single body of sound appear to arise from bass note. Tavener weaves several gloriously stands among the longest and most substantial what the Romanian historian of religion Mircea Cathedral Commissions, a creative initiative unexpected chromatic passing notes and of Tavener’s final works. The piece, created in Eliade describes as “indefinitely recoverable, launched by Wells Cathedral in 2006, was cadences into the music’s stately harmonic the early months of 2013 as a tribute to indefinitely repeatable” sacred time, “[…] a able to raise funds to commission both the language; the recurrence of a sublime half the Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás sort of eternal mythical present that is Missa Wellensis and a new set of Preces and cadence in The Lord’s Prayer, meanwhile, Luis de Victoria, is scored for double choir periodically reintegrated by means of rites.” Responses. The latter was first brought to suggests eternal time. Prayers for the Queen and calls for the subdivision of each voice life by Matthew Owens and Wells Cathedral and the ministers of the Church are capped part. Within its 20-minute span Tavener Missa Wellensis was written for one of the Choir during Evensong on 18 May 2014. by joyful choral responses, while the plea for evokes the infinity of creation, sounded and oldest of all Christian rites, that of Eucharist. Owens has set their premiere recording within peace in our time is answered with defiant - 4 - - 5 - strength by the two choirs singing identical Service was written in 1984 and first performed Silence stands at the heart of Tavener’s Psalm service of Matins. The grace notes prominent music in close imitation. The final responses, at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. The 121, both real and metaphysical, measured in the melodic writing, reminiscent of the a brief sequence of blessings offered in the monumental work, written in English and and eternal. The piece, intended by its ‘breaks’ in the voice common in Byzantine presence of the Lord and the spiritual lasting around two hours in performance, composer to be performed with ‘Byzantine chant, and the intensity of the ‘cherubim’ community, close with Tavener’s resounding includes a spellbinding setting of The Lord’s grandeur’, was written in 1989 for the Choir refrains contribute to the Magnificat’s mounting thanks to God. Prayer, which opens flower-like as each line of St Paul’s Cathedral. As with so many of fervour, which in turn finds its resolution in unfolds to blossom with the closing plea for Tavener’s compositions, the tonal edifice of the Lesser Doxology, ‘Glory be to the Father’, In 1977 Tavener was received into the Orthodox delivery from evil. ‘I will lift up mine eyes to the hills’ is built upon and meditative stillness of the ensuing Nunc Church. He found his way there after prolonged a drone, the ison of Byzantine sacred music, dimittis, the latter scored for subdivided immersion in Roman Catholicism and the It is not too fanciful to imagine Tavener as a symbol of the everlasting.