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Home , John Tavener, The Whale (Tavener)

ICON IN SOUND AN INTERVIEW WITH SIR GREGORY M. PYSH

Gregory M. Pysh Minister of Music First Presbyterian Church Midland, TX [email protected] Author’s Note: With the passing of Sir John Tavener in November 2013, there has been a renewed interest in his music written for chorus.The previously unpublished interview below, although conducted in 1998, gives pertinent insight into the composer’s thoughts about composition and choral music. Edits have been made for grammatical consistency and, where necessary for clarity, text additions appear in brackets.

John Tavener was born in London in 1944. Distantly related to the Tudor composer with a similar surname (Taverner), he displayed a musical talent at an early age. At twelve years old, he heard a performance of ’s Canticum Sacrum in France and speaks of it as a “piece that woke me up, and made me want to be a composer.”1 His secondary education was at Highgate School, where his classmates included British composer, editor, and arranger . At age seventeen, Tavener was appointed organist-choirmaster for St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Kensington, a post he held for the next fourteen years. In 1962, he matriculated to the , where Photo by Simone Canetty-Clarke his composition teachers were Sir and David Lumsdaine. In 1968, Tavener’s dramatic cantata was premiered by the and took its audience by storm. Called modern music without tears, its success led to conversations with and subsequent release on Apple label. Tavener continued to show an originality of concept and an intensely personal idiom, making his a voice quite separate from those of his contemporaries. Much of this individuality can be said to “hinge on…his rejection of modernist techniques in favor of a return to tonality, which is the historic musical language of the Church.”2 His works have also connected him with Henryk Górecki and Arvo Pärt, the trio given the title “holy minimalists” for their writing exclusively sacred works, many of these for chorus.

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In 1977, after a long period of con- BBC documentaries; one, “Glimpses of What did the conversion to Eastern templation, Tavener joined the Russian Paradise,” evolving into a book of the Orthodoxy mean to you and to your Orthodox Church, a spiritual decision same name by Geoffrey Haydon and music? that shaped his compositions, both spiri- published in 1992. His many and varied tually and technically. Although he was works have been recorded by Sony, EMI, The Eastern Church has preserved the commissioned to write works outside of Hyperion, Virgin Classics, Chandos, and esoteric dimension of Christianity, that the Orthodox liturgical rubric (e.g., “The several others. The composer married which cannot be understood. I think I Lamb” and “Love Bade Me Welcome”), Maryanna Schaefer in 1991, and the confronted Tradition with a capital T. the preponderance of his compositions couple had three children. The Russian archbishop who asked me have texts or sources within the Ortho- This interview was conducted by to write a setting of the liturgy told me, dox faith. These include The Protecting phone on September 17, 1998. “I don’t want you to know anything Veil for solo cello and strings (winner about the tone system of the Orthodox of a Gramophone Award in 1992); the church; I just want you to react to it as Akathist of Thanksgiving for choir, soloists, What was the infl uence of Stravinsky’s words.” This was, in hindsight, a very wise strings, and percussion (which received Canticum Sacrum, and why is this piece thing to do, because I wrote it and they a standing ovation at its premiere in a so important to your development as sang it as a celebration of the liturgy. packed Westminster Abbey in 1988); a composer? Then I was confronted by a member of and an opera, Mary of Egypt, written for the congregation, saying, “Well, that’s just the 1992 Aldeburgh Festival. I heard in it, albeit at a subliminal level, your own fabricated music. It has noth- Of signifi cance in his prolifi c output when I was twelve, Tradition with a capi- ing to do with tradition. We don’t hear of choral music are “ and The tal T. I also heard echoes of Byzantine the tone system, etc.” It was about that Tyger,” both on a text of ; music, particularly in one section (the time also that I met Sufi s, a musician, and and “Today the Virgin,” with text by tenor solo “Surge, aquilo,” where the realized that unless music had tradition Mother Thekla, abbess of an Orthodox bass plays a drone under the solo). The connected to it, it was just domestic, had monastery in North Yorkshire, who whole piece has an air of traditional no function, and was a meaningless sort was a mentor for Tavener’s spiritual and antiquity about it. of intellectual, or just emotional, exercise. musical life, having compiled, translated, and written a good many of his texts; IInn aadditionddition ttoo CCanticumanticum, wwhathat wwereere What was the signifi cance of Mother and “,” or “Alleluia, May ootherther iinnfl uuencesences oonn yyourour ddevelopmentevelopment Thekla in your spiritual and composi- Flights of Angels Sing Thee to Thy Rest,” aass a ccomposer?omposer? tional life? sung for the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, which brought his music to the I heard the Magic Flute when I was She drew me out at a period in my life attention of many American ears for twelve also. I can’t say that Mozart when I wanted to write only liturgical the fi rst time. was an interest exactly, but [I liked] the music. She said that there was no point His working method was to reduce fact that in that piece, particularly, he in doing this, because the liturgical music ideas, both musical and textual, to their deals with archetypes rather than real of the Orthodox church already existed, absolute essence, an ideal shared by people. I think the archetypes are the unless, she said, England became truly an Stravinsky in his later music. To aspire to real people. We’ve lost that. Ever since autocephalous Orthodox church. what is transcendent, Tavener believed the advent of the model, we’ve lost it was essential to return to primordial dimension and tradition. People are our Byzantine chant has a prominent place values, to mankind’s deepest roots, to a archetypes, and even though Mozart in your music. Do you use one set holy tradition of working in an age that came at it through a Masonic path, he exclusively? was fundamentally unsympathetic to it. transcended that completely. I think it’s It was a bold aspiration, pursued not the whole idea of transcendence in the I wouldn’t say that I am a hard-line with arrogance but with humility. The Magic Flute; not only that, but it could traditionalist, but Greek chant is in the passionate conviction that lent urgency be listened to by a three-year-old and apostolic tradition. It is eschatological to this momentous task illumines every a ninety-three-year-old but on different Christian chant; it comes from ancient page of his music. levels. Greece and has the Jewish music that Tavener was the subject of several was being sung in the synagogue at the

20 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 54 Number 10 AN INTERVIEW WITH SIR JOHN TAVENER

time of Christ, and I would say a Greek tone, as you imply, doesn’t bother me, ecstasy. I remember one instance in monk would certainly say it was in a because in the West we don’t have that particular when I was writing a piece I holy tradition, where others might say rich tradition. call “Mr. Gorgiere” just for instruments. that Russian and other national chants The music seemed to come from no- destroyed that tradition. I can’t feel that, How important are icons to your where. It is very long, and I was writing because I think also of the words of music? it in Greece at the beginning of the year Christ, “Behold, I make all things new.” [1998]. Often in the evenings I went for And novelty in the sense of Elliot Carter Well, I think, again, tradition, symbol. If a walk. I was watching the wonderful or (Pierre) Boulez or any modernist. The you look at a Byzantine icon with an- winter sunset, and I remember having composer means nothing whatsoever gels gazing on the face of the Divine, this curious thought: I am just a piece of to me. It seems to be kind of like an you see faces that are almost frozen music, I’m not a person. It was a strange, intellectual game. So, there is a kind of with ecstasy—a kind of frozen ecstasy. out-of-body experience.

You have stated that “sacred art has gone downhill since the Middle Ages.” Sir John Tavener's working method was to reduce ideas, Can you please elaborate? both musical and textual, to their absolute essence. I will go even further. I think it has gone downhill after Gregorian chant. Once the ego started to do clever things with music, [music is] already going downhill. It’s going in a humanist direction. Maybe fascination in it, but for me as the listener, If anybody, or I, was able to write music it’s very unkind of me to say downhill. I fi nd it very hard to understand how that caused that kind of reaction, then I Of course, the Holy Spirit lifts this somebody like Elliot Carter, who seems would think I was able to create an icon world, and it would be impossible for like such a sweet man, and I’ve met him, in sound. Whether I have done that, I me to say there haven’t been moments has no illumination about anything what- have no idea. Only God knows. in music that have meant enormous soever. It is very harsh, what I’ve said, and amounts to me. At the moment, for I realize it, but it makes me very sad [that So what are you striving to create in instance, I am listening to a great deal their compositions have no illumination]. your compositions? of Handel. The simplicity of that man, I think again of the early period of Byz- the lack of development, the lack of… antium. Whether there were mosaics That numinous quality of frozen ecstasy you know Bach is wonderful, of course. or painting or icons or the poetry or that causes us to think of “bow down” But in Bach you tend to get a fugue, music, it was understood by the elite and bend our bodies in front of an icon and you know it is going to go on in and (by all) the people. If music is going in the way that I certainly would not a certain kind of… [progression]. But to survive at all, we have to get back to bow down my face in front of a well- with Handel, he has these fl ashes of that situation (where art is understood executed sacred work of art. There is spontaneity … I think it was Gregory by everyone). no theology in it. That is humanism again. of Nazianzus who said, “Unless every- thing is spontaneous, it doesn’t exist Considering the importance of chant Is the act of composition a spiritual at all in the eyes of God.” So Handel to your music, what motivates you to exercise for you? in particular I fi nd at the moment has write outside of these tones (e.g., “The produced music that seems to come Lamb,” “Song for Athene”)? Yes, it is prayer. I would say to work is straight out of him. Of course, there are to pray. long, boring passages in between. But I think those pieces come to me sort when he is at his best, he seems like a of fully grown. I don’t know where they To clarify, you are not praying con- kind of “humanist-theophany.” Not the come from; I don’t work at them, they stantly while you’re working? Messiah in particular, but “Solomon” and just come, almost like dictated writing. “Deborah,” which I discovered recently. The fact that I don’t use any particular Oh, no, no, I am in a kind of state of I fi nd them, especially in the context of

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Baroque composers, quite remarkable. of spontaneity. It is in the back of my That was said by an Athonite monk, Everything else Baroque I loathe. With mind, because I am writing something and I agree. But I do see little sort of Handel, it’s his spontaneity and his sim- else at the moment, and when I come glimmers of hope, in so far as the very plicity that I admire. to it, usually what happens is that it just fact that ordinary people come up to fl ows through me, if I’m lucky. me and say how much my music means Can you explain your creative process? to them. That gives me the courage to “Song for Athene” might be considered go on. And maybe they’re looking for I cannot compose a piece unless there your most well-known work. Would something beyond. is a metaphysical subtext. Years ago, I you explain the circumstances of its probably set out, as many contemporary composition and what it meant to you Beyond? composers do, just to write a piece. for it to be sung at Princess Diana’s But now, unless it has a metaphysical funeral service? Beyond, or what some call the “intellec- subtext, like the late poetry of Yeats, tual organ of the heart.” I think that mu- [I cannot compose]. All of that poetry The circumstances for me writing it was sic of the intellect, music of the human has a metaphysical subtext. All great the death of a young girl called Athene intellect, music of the human emotion, traditional music, except for the West, (Ah-thee-nee), who was killed in a cy- is almost fi nished. We’ve gone into ab- has this. You don’t need to tell a Hindu cling accident. I went to her funeral in straction; we’ve gone into technological that [music] needs to have a metaphysi- the Orthodox church. Although I knew music, which refl ects the awful scientifi c cal subtext—it just has it. You wouldn’t her parents, I never spoke a word with age in which we live. The only way for- need to tell an Orthodox composer her. It seemed to be a gift, a parting gift. ward is to rediscover that intellectual that it needs to have a subtext. I am I have had this happen quite often in organ of the heart, which everybody thinking of the anonymous composer my life. When I came out of the church, has, if it can be touched. who wrote chant—it already has it. So the piece was already fully born. It just I think, basically, that the music in a way had come to me, so I went home and What does the success of The Whale comes with the metaphysics, whether I sketched it out. As far as it being used at mean now? am setting words or not. the funeral of Princess Diana, that was very moving for me. I was in the Abbey A cul-de-sac. I wrote it at a time when Do you use a piano in composition? myself and heard it there. But I think it I suppose I got the nearest to being an was so much more moving, almost un- “angry young man.” It was a time of Yes, especially in the early periods to bearable, for the parents of Athene to post-war serialism, and of course the check sounds. But I couldn’t write a hear that piece in that setting. piece is semi-serial but also surrealistic chord unless it has some Traditional at the same time. I see now that I was signifi cance. Did you know that Martin Neary was going in a cul-de-sac. If I would have planning to do that work before you continued in that direction, I would have Do you choose your own texts? heard it? gone nowhere.

I think no. I would ring someone like He rang me up and asked me what What advice would you give to young Mother Thekla, and I say, “I want to write piece of mine would be suitable for the composers? a piece on the conversion of Paul.” I gave funeral, and I immediately said “Song for a few ideas of what I wanted, and about Athene.” I think it is a very tragic state that they two weeks later a text came through the are introduced straight into , post. What is your favorite work? certainly in this country [England]. In normal teaching, if they are going to be Is that piece still in process? The Apocalypse. It is a very long piece. a composer, it would be to start analyz- It is not exactly simple, and I suppose ing something like Pierrot Lunaire as a It has hardly begun. I am thinking, but that because we are coming to the end seminal work. I think far more important on the other hand, I don’t like too of the millennium, that piece sort of is that they understand—if what the much thinking because I think that goes symbolizes the pretty awful state we’re Taoist philosopher said is true, and I be- against Gregory of Nazianzus’s concept in. I think we live in a civilization in ruins. lieve it is—that music began at the Great

22 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 54 Number 10 AN INTERVIEW WITH SIR JOHN TAVENER

manuscripts and think, “What am I We’ve gone into abstraction; we’ve gone into technological going to do?” Now it’s a question of going very quiet, emptying my mind music, which refl ects the awful scientifi c age in which of preconceived ideas and seeing we live. The only way forward is to rediscover that what happens. It’s not so much a question of finding my voice as intellectual organ of the heart, which everybody has, if fi nding The voice.3

it can be touched. In the early part of the decade, he continued to focus on works for very large forces in vast spaces, including Fall and Resurrection, scored for soprano, countertenor, and baritone soloists, Beginning of all things. Then, they should Thekla, taken from the Psalms and the SSAATTBB choir, and full orchestra; The study Tradition fi rst. They should look Gospels. It ends on Mary Magdalene’s Veil of the Temple (2003), an eight-hour at the Hindu chant, Byzantine chants, words, “Raboni, Raboni,” after falling at work for soprano soloist, SATB chorus, Gregorian chant—they should look at the feet of Christ. Until we are able to boys’ choir, and orchestra; and The all chants. That is one of the good things do that, we can’t advance at all. Beautiful Names (2004), a setting of the about this awful scientifi c age in which ninety-nine names of Allah in the Koran, we live: access to these chants is only This work is scored for chorus and scored for tenor soloist, SSAATTBB down the road at our local record shop, orchestra? choir with semi-chorus, and orchestra. where we can buy something from Syria, Tavener was affl icted with many seri- from the Middle East, or from American Yes, orchestra, chorus, and soloists, and ous health issues throughout his life. A Indian culture that we’ve never had be- I think it will be performed in St. Paul’s heart attack in 2006 and extended re- fore. In the time of Beethoven, he could Cathedral. cuperation changed his focus to shorter never hear such music. In, therefore, a and more personal works, which include: symbolic way, go to the university of the for SATB chorus Away in a Manger desert and listen to this music and listen Author’s note: Tavener’s choral work Fall (2010), Rocking (2007), and They Are All to its certainty before you start coming and Resurrection was performed in St. Gone Into the World of Light (2011); and to the very, very inferior world of Freud. Paul’s Cathedral on January 4, 2000, the Tolstoy’s Creed (2012) for SSSAATTBBB I know it is very sharp, what I am saying, same year he received his knighthood voices. Sir John Tavener passed away but I think it is what is necessary. for services to music. on November 12, 2013, at the age of sixty-nine. Do you have any new choral works planned? EEnteringntering tthehe NOTES I am writing a piece for the millennium NNewew MillenniumMillennium called Fall and Resurrection, which is 1 Geoffrey Haydon, John Tavener: Glimpses dedicated to Prince Charles. He is a In the new millennium, Tavener of Paradise (Victor Gollancz: London, friend, and I think England is very lucky revised the tone of his compositional 1995), 21. to have a man like him who really un- process. 2 John Tavener and Mother Thekla, Ikons: derstands spiritual things. I think it must Meditations in Words and Music (Harper be a very long time since any monarch It has taken me years to really Collins: London), 89 3 in England has existed who has had any understand what tradition is, and to Allan Kozinn, “The Creative Mind; Immersed real interest in metaphysics, and maybe explain it to anyone else is diffi cult. in Ancient Musical Traditions, Seeking People call it different things. In Truth,” (May 2000). that’s a good sign for the future. I don’t , the Sufi s call it “the eye of the know. The piece ends triumphant, which heart.” St. Augustine defi ned it as is sort of foreign to Orthodoxy, but it “the intellectual organ of the heart.” ends on a note of hope, although the It is a different way of thinking about text is succinct. The text is by Mother writing music. I used to fret over

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