thanks a lot!
seems to be interesting from the first and very brief listening done in a great hurry.
good enough after the serious disappointment with Tavener’s Improperia.
—
BTW a new threat over MediaFire:
Paramount Pictures branded MediaFire among “rogue sites and prime targets that should be shuttered next”.
more info here: http://torrentfreak.com/mediafire-shocked-by-hollywood-smear-campaign-120404/
(an interview of MediaFire co-founder)
Vladimir
12 years ago
and yet, dear Simon, don’t you consider this rare fruit, i.e. Sir John Tavener, as a banal spiritual charlatan? should we reject the “spiritual,” “orthodox,” oriental, “vedantic” and any other non-musical component, we should be faced to the poverty of musical ideas, or absence thereof.
after having spent some time for listening of a new tavenerish whimsy, i’ve immediately passed over to Messiaen (Quatuor pour la fin du temps) and traditional Oriental music genre (2 ragas sung by the late pandit Omkarnath Thakur). it was enough. I had no need in 4 string quartets with Tibetan bowl.
this recent taveneriade reminded me of labours lost by my friend on staging here in Kiev Terry Johnson’s “Hysteria”. there also were the Tibetan singing bowls there, a lot of actors’ fuss, but no clear director’s idea except the ambitious stage design and pretentious musical background.
how similar it was…
Vladimir, i would certainly agree that, on occasions, frequently even, Tavener’s music is banal. As to whether he’s a “spiritual charlatan”, i’m not sure anyone’s qualified to say. Regarding the content, i would agree that, in contemporary terms, it’s relatively straightforward—which is not to say basic; look through the score & you’ll appreciate there are interesting things happening—but i hardly think that’s a problem of itself (Bernat Vivancos’ El davallament de la creu is even more simple). So i wouldn’t agree that it depends on the extra-musical ideas in order to ‘work’.
Incidentally, i’m baffled why people are often keen to strip music composed for religious/sacred reasons of its spiritual component in order to expose some (hoped-for) vacuous core. i’m not saying that’s what you’re doing – but i do wonder whether you would have reached for that kind of criticism if the piece had not openly invoked aspects of spirituality.
[…] exhilarating effect in the four-quartet performance of Towards Silence, a work explored on 5:4 a couple of years ago. The concert had opened with Jonathan Harvey’s timeless Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco, & in […]
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thanks a lot!
seems to be interesting from the first and very brief listening done in a great hurry.
good enough after the serious disappointment with Tavener’s Improperia.
—
BTW a new threat over MediaFire:
Paramount Pictures branded MediaFire among “rogue sites and prime targets that should be shuttered next”.
more info here:
http://torrentfreak.com/mediafire-shocked-by-hollywood-smear-campaign-120404/
(an interview of MediaFire co-founder)
and yet, dear Simon, don’t you consider this rare fruit, i.e. Sir John Tavener, as a banal spiritual charlatan? should we reject the “spiritual,” “orthodox,” oriental, “vedantic” and any other non-musical component, we should be faced to the poverty of musical ideas, or absence thereof.
after having spent some time for listening of a new tavenerish whimsy, i’ve immediately passed over to Messiaen (Quatuor pour la fin du temps) and traditional Oriental music genre (2 ragas sung by the late pandit Omkarnath Thakur). it was enough. I had no need in 4 string quartets with Tibetan bowl.
this recent taveneriade reminded me of labours lost by my friend on staging here in Kiev Terry Johnson’s “Hysteria”. there also were the Tibetan singing bowls there, a lot of actors’ fuss, but no clear director’s idea except the ambitious stage design and pretentious musical background.
how similar it was…
Vladimir, i would certainly agree that, on occasions, frequently even, Tavener’s music is banal. As to whether he’s a “spiritual charlatan”, i’m not sure anyone’s qualified to say. Regarding the content, i would agree that, in contemporary terms, it’s relatively straightforward—which is not to say basic; look through the score & you’ll appreciate there are interesting things happening—but i hardly think that’s a problem of itself (Bernat Vivancos’ El davallament de la creu is even more simple). So i wouldn’t agree that it depends on the extra-musical ideas in order to ‘work’.
Incidentally, i’m baffled why people are often keen to strip music composed for religious/sacred reasons of its spiritual component in order to expose some (hoped-for) vacuous core. i’m not saying that’s what you’re doing – but i do wonder whether you would have reached for that kind of criticism if the piece had not openly invoked aspects of spirituality.
[…] exhilarating effect in the four-quartet performance of Towards Silence, a work explored on 5:4 a couple of years ago. The concert had opened with Jonathan Harvey’s timeless Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco, & in […]