I first encountered John Tavener when I was a young chorister at King’s College, Cambridge. We were singing his choral work, The Lamb, and I vividly remember his presence, which struck me even then as a young nine or 10-year-old. He was extremely tall with long hair, dressed in a white suit, and had a sort of mystical aura around him.
Some years later I was performing his works, Popule Meus, for solo cello and orchestra, and Svyati, for cello and choir, again in King’s College Chapel. Director of music Stephen Cleobury told me that Tavener was going to be at the concert, and so I decided to reach out to him to ask about the pieces before we performed them in his presence. I telephoned him – Maryanna, his wife, answered. I remember hearing her take the phone to John, ascending many steps into what sounded like an attic, but in my mind, and knowing John’s heavenly music, I wondered if we had actually arrived above the clouds.
He gave me valuable insights into the works, but today I don’t remember much specifically about the conversation other than being slightly starstruck. Knowing that he was in the chapel as we performed the concert made the whole occasion extra special. Tavener came to the front of the audience at the end to take a bow and opened his outstretched arms as if to anoint us all, and there was this almighty crescendo of applause. At the busy reception afterwards, John was sitting quietly in the corner by himself with his walking stick, and so I took the opportunity to go and speak with him. We talked away about various things, I most remember him telling me, “I think I’m just starting to come around to Beethoven.”
Some years later, I performed The Protecting Veil a number of times including at a festival celebrating Tavener’s music in Cardiff with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and then at a memorial concert, again at King’s Chapel, Cambridge. I feel lucky to have met John in his last years. He died aged 69 in November 2013.
The Protecting Veil, for many his masterpiece, was premiered at the 1989 BBC Proms by my friend and mentor Steven Isserlis with Oliver Knussen conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It reflects Tavener’s deeply felt religious faith – he was a member of the Greek Orthodox church, his spirituality was the guiding force for most of his compositions.
Tavener himself wrote by way of introduction:
In the early tenth century at a time of grave danger for the Greeks from a Saracen invasion, Andrew, the holy fool, during an All-Night-Vigil, saw the Mother of God surrounded by a host of saints. Heartened by this vision, the Greeks withstood the Saracen assault and drove away the Saracen army. The Feast of the Protecting Veil is kept by the Orthodox Church in celebration of this event.
Various Feasts were in my mind as I composed; for instance the second section is related to [the Virgin Mary’s] birth, the third to the Annunciation… the fifth to her lament at the foot of the cross, the sixth to the Resurrection, and the first and last sections to her cosmic beauty and power over a shattered world.
The Protecting Veil … is an attempt to make a lyrical ikon in sound, rather than in wood, and using the music of the cellist to paint rather than a brush. The music is highly stylised, geometrically formed, and meditative in character.”
I grew up listening to Isserlis’s iconic recording, and when I came to learn the work I decided to go to a Greek Orthodox church for inspiration. St Sophia’s Cathedral in west London was close to where I was living at the time, and when I asked if I could practice Tavener’s music there during the week, they responded with a big smile saying that he himself used to visit the church frequently. It was as if it was meant to be, and wonderful to observe the services in the space with the smells and bells and chants, too.
During the memorial concert – broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 – I remember my attention being caught by a little boy in the front row who would occasionally lie down on the floor when the music was calm, and sort of roll around when it became more active, and then at other times I wondered if he had even fallen asleep on the heated stone floor in the chapel! I knew it was Tavener’s young son, Orlando, and it almost felt as if I could sense John’s presence during the performance through this small child.
I’m really happy to be returning to this masterpiece during what would have been John’s 80th year and performing it with the wonderful Britten Sinfonia. Memories have come flooding back. The piece really does take you into another dimension. Perhaps it is grimly fitting to be performing it with war raging in various parts of the world. The work’s inspiration is drawn from a story of a besieged nation and a vision of the Mother of God spreading out her veil as a protective shelter. The cello starts by itself in the highest register of the instrument, marked “Transcendent, with awesome majesty” while the strings gradually emerge in the radiant key of F major, full of light and hope. Over six sections we travel on a spiritual journey from the Birth to the Dormition (the falling asleep) of the Mother of God. We hear a chant between each section that cycles through each degree of the F major scale until we finally return to the opening theme 40 minutes or so later. We are left with a depiction of tears of the Mother of God by falling glissandos in the strings.
“I have tried to capture some of the almost cosmic power of the Mother of God,” wrote Tavener. “The cello represents the Mother of God and never stops singing throughout. One can think of the strings as a gigantic extension of her unending song … the first and last sections relate to her cosmic beauty and power over a shattered world.”
The Protecting Veil took the world by storm and remains one of a tiny handful of classical pieces nominated for a Mercury prize, in the award’s inaugural year, 1992. (Primal Scream’s Screamadelica won.)
It takes quite some stamina to perform this enchanted work. The cellist is playing in the stratosphere for much of the time. There are some unusual techniques along the way, including symbols denoting microtones that characterise the breaks in the voice of byzantine chant, plus challenging double stops and other virtuosic passages that sound almost improvised. Tavener really casts a spell with the evocative sound world that is unlike any other work I can think of. At one point, the cello is left lamenting alone for almost five minutes in the darkest register of the instrument. There are some sublime moments, with interjections of warlike eruptions from the double basses and string orchestra along the way, but somehow by the end, one is transported to a distant mystical realm.