Cellist Steven Isserlis' association with the music of John Tavener dates back to the late 1980s when he gave the premiere performance of The Protecting Veil. He has recorded other Tavener works since then, but No Longer Mourn for Me takes the relationship into a new and highly personal realm. Each of the five Tavener works here had a specific connection to Isserlis, outlined in the booklet (the physical CD is recommended). The three central works, accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Omer Meir Wellber, offer ...
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Cellist Steven Isserlis' association with the music of John Tavener dates back to the late 1980s when he gave the premiere performance of The Protecting Veil. He has recorded other Tavener works since then, but No Longer Mourn for Me takes the relationship into a new and highly personal realm. Each of the five Tavener works here had a specific connection to Isserlis, outlined in the booklet (the physical CD is recommended). The three central works, accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Omer Meir Wellber, offer aspects of Tavener's music that will be less familiar to many listeners, such as the Sufi singing of Abi Sampa in Mahámátar (2000). The bookends of the program are two choral Tavener works, Preces and Responses (2013) and "No longer mourn for me" (2010, setting of a Shakespeare sonnet), arranged for eight cellos by Isserlis, who also plays. The absence of text creates a remarkable effect of heightened spirituality. The album was not conceived as a whole; it was recorded on two separate...
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