4/25/20

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John Tavener (1944-2013)

English composer Sir John Tavener was another person who I was exposed to in a course I took about choral composition. I remember being immediately fascinated by his seemingly sparse yet expansive style, and after completing the course my professor, Carl Smith, gave me a book about Tavener’s music and life. While I have yet to finish that book, I have learned quite a bit about John Tavener’s musical aesthetic and his religious journey. In 1977, Tavener converted to the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Orthodox theology had quickly become a major influence on his compositions. While in earlier life Tavener was very moved by the works of composers like Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen, his later works would bear a closer resemblance to the spiritual minimalist music of Arvo Pärt, who he personally was very fond of. A vast majority of John Tavener’s works were written for choir, and many are unabashedly tonal with wide use of the voices but without extreme harmonic variation. Today’s piece, Song for Athene, was written in 1993, and as one of his most famous works, it shows just how open and beautifully straightforward Tavener’s music is.

Song for Athene was written as a tribute to a family friend of Tavener’s, Athene Hariades, who was a young actress killed in a cycling accident. The text was conceived by and Orthodox nun, with four lyrics coming from Othodox funeral services and two coming from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Each line, however, is prefaced with the Hebrew word “alleluia,” and each time it is sung against the droning pitch without harmony. The use of a drone pitch is actually not that uncommon to Tavener’s music, with it being a very distinctive characteristic of Byzantine music. The fame of Song for Athene is often attributed to its performance at the funeral service of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.

From a more of an analytical approach, there is not extensive musical techniques to dissect in the piece. The entire 7-minute length of the piece is centered around the pitch of F, which (as the drone) is both the first and the last note heard. The first lyric is presented completely in a major tonality, affirmed by both the “alleluia” as well as the harmony in the soprano, alto, and tenor which follows. The second lyric, however, is revealed to me of a much different color, made very obvious by the unexpected A-flat in the “alleluia.” Even so, the tonality isn’t too settled with the harmony seeming to point at times to F minor and at other times to D-flat major (which would be unstable given that the major third is the lowest sounding voice). The next “alleluia” restores the A-natural of the first phrase, but eventually leads to an even more unclear harmonization of the melody. The A-flats in the soprano and tenor with the D-naturals in the alto and bass 1 make for a rather unsettling sound which might imply the Dorian mode, although it is only made more strange by the E-natural (leading tone) against the G-flat (Neapolitan). The following harmonization messes again with the stability, with the soprano/tenor now having A-naturals and the alto/bass 1 having D-flats. After that harmonization, the entire choir sings the “alleluia,” giving way to the first and only crescendo of the piece (which happens in the next verse). Finally, we arrive on the second half of the final verse where Tavener throws the doors open with a grand forte across the choir, undoubtedly reestablishing F major, and having the soprano voice soar up to a high A. With that, the grandeur cuts out completely to reveal the drone and one final “alleluia.”

Though I normally don’t plan a theme for each of my posts, the theme for today is the concept of restraint. The final verse of Song for Athene is only perceived as so magnificent because it is truly the only time that the music amounts to such a volume. Where Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No. 1 was a turbulent sea with moments of great sensitivity and others that set new limits of intensity, Song for Athene is a calm ocean horizon with the sun rising to reveal its blazing glory only once. Consider how even shorter pieces than this one often have more localized swells, dramatizing each and every melodic idea. Tavener’s music is one of the great antithesis to the Romantic tradition of heartache and emotional turmoil. His music instead shows extreme dignity, only allowing itself to burst out once to showcase how brilliant its material is. Perhaps I am praising too much, but there is something to be said about music of the late Romantic era (and since) that is too consistently dramatic to be palatable. Even I am in some small part guilty of it too as a self-acclaimed neo-romantic, which is perhaps why I can admire the elegance of John Tavener’s music so much. All music requires some level of restraint, but Song for Athene simply breathes quiet, unforced beauty. Below I have a video in which the score accompanies a performance by the Gabrieli Players. Whether you have heard of John Tavener before or not, I do hope this piece will encourage you to check out more of his music.