Call it the breakthrough of John Tavener, or the mainstreaming, depending on your perspective. Beginning around the turn of the millennium, this British exemplar of holy minimalism began to move away from his identification with the Eastern Orthodox faith. At the same time, his musical language broadened, maintaining its repetitive sound but adding a new dramatic spirit and a richer harmonic palette. For a long time Tavener was the province of choirs, and engineers, who specialized in his music, but here he definitively ...
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Call it the breakthrough of John Tavener, or the mainstreaming, depending on your perspective. Beginning around the turn of the millennium, this British exemplar of holy minimalism began to move away from his identification with the Eastern Orthodox faith. At the same time, his musical language broadened, maintaining its repetitive sound but adding a new dramatic spirit and a richer harmonic palette. For a long time Tavener was the province of choirs, and engineers, who specialized in his music, but here he definitively moves into the British cathedral tradition with performances by (and music commissioned by) the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, and production by none other than the dean of pleasing British religious music, John Rutter. The central work here, Ex Maria Virgine (2005), is Marian in theme and was dedicated to the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall on the occasion of their nuptials, with an appropriately joyous mood. It gives a good idea of the direction in which Tavener's style is...
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