We Must Always Keep Our Orthodox Roots: An Interview with Sir John Tavener

Sir John Tavener is big in Russia, and his take on Orthodox liturgical traditions is generating increasing interest among Russian audiences. Performances of his music there have so far been limited, but an all-Tavener concert has been arranged for 11 May in St Petersburg, part of the celebrations to mark “Bright Week” in the Orthodox calendar (http://www.choirfestival.ru/). Ahead of the concert, I interviewed Tavener (by email) about his views on Russia and his relationship with Orthodoxy today. The interview will be appearing in Крещенские вечера (Epiphany Evenings), the journal for the concert season, so naturally it’s aimed at a Russian readership. Nevertheless, there is much here that will be of interest to Western readers. I was particularly interested in Tavener’s views on the increasingly political identity of the Orthodox Church in Russia and how this is threatening its moral authority. I wonder how that will go down with Russian readers...

East meets West in the music of Sir John Tavener. The composer holds a central position in British musical life, a fact recognised by his status as a Knight of the Realm. His music is regularly performed by British cathedral choirs, who work within a distinctively Anglican performance tradition. Yet Tavener looks Eastward for his inspirations, primarily to the music of the Russian Orthodox Church. His ability to present the musical traditions of Orthodoxy in a way that appeals to listeners from many cultures has led to an increasingly international audience for his music, including a significant following in Russia. Ahead of performances of his works in St. Petersburg this spring, I interviewed Sir John Tavener about his work, his relationship with Russian culture, and his thoughts on what his music has to say to Russian audiences.

An obvious connection to Russia in Tavener’s music is his use of the Russian language in many works. “I find Russian is a very musical language” Tavener tells me, “and it seems to produce a specific kind of Russianness in my music.” Many successful performances of his Russian-language works by English-speaking choirs have demonstrated that the language is not a problem for the singers. But what of the style? Do Russian choirs perform his music better? “A Russian choir sounds beautiful and brings something special to my music, and so does an English cathedral choir. So I must write a music that will sound beautiful in both, in their different ways.”

Choral traditions may be different in Britain and Russia, but Tavener is reluctant to generalise about how audiences in different countries respond. He focuses instead on individual listeners and their personal engagement with the traditions of the Church. “Tradition works differently in everyone. It is a mystery and so is music and so is God and I prefer to leave it like that.”

That belief in tradition as a core value is something Tavener shares with his friend Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. Knowing that the Prince takes a great interest in many forms of spirituality, I ask Tavener what the Prince’s views are on the Orthodox faith. Again, it comes down to the central role of tradition. “The Prince loves tradition – he feels very at home in the Orthodox Church – it is in his genes. When I first went in to an Orthodox Church I knew I had come home. I think he feels something similar.”

But tradition can be a complex issue in the creative arts: when working within a tradition, where does the tradition end and the composer’s personality begin? The Russian theorist and composer Vladimir Martynov has suggested that the predominance of liturgical traditions and religious themes in recent music signals “the end of the age of composers”. When music makes recourse to timeless values, as embodied in the traditions of liturgical music, Martynov believes, the composer’s personality, and even their identity, become irrelevant. When I put this idea to Sir John Tavener, he disagrees, saying that music should be both spiritual and personal.

“I think there is a colossal spiritual decline from Victoria to Schoenberg, but both, in their ways are great composers, and indeed deeply personal and bubbling with individual identity. And there is probably a decline from Mozart to Arvo Pärt. But again, both composers have a deep spirituality. If composers are any good they will be spiritual and individual.”

Tavener’s own spiritual journey has been closely linked with the Orthodox faith, ever since he was received into the Russian Orthodox Church in 1977. His relationship with the Church has become somewhat looser in recent years. When I ask his thoughts on the status of the Orthodox faith in the modern world, he expresses both concerns and hope.

“What worries me today are the aspects of Nationalism, prevalent in Orthodox countries. If it can lose this aspect I think it would make a much stronger impact on a world that is dilapidated and that has lost the precious language of ritual, signs and symbolism. If it hangs on to Nationalism it will remain as ineffectual and dilapidated as the secular culture.”

But Tavener’s relationship with Russia itself, with both the country and the people, seems wholly positive. “My visit to Moscow many years ago, to hear my Akhmatova Requiem with Gennady Rozhdestvensky was one of the most moving of my life. My great hope is that I may return before I depart this world. The country and landscape of Russia made a deep impression on me.” I put it to Tavener that his music is enjoying increasing popularity among Russian audiences. This doesn’t surprise him, and he puts it down to shared spiritual beliefs between himself the Russian people, and to a shared scepticism toward some developments in the West.

“I believe that Russians will have a strong affinity with my music. All Russians I have ever known have had an innate sense of the sacred, an innate sense of tradition, and my music has been fashioned by these things and the music of the Russian Orthodox Church. I also believe that Russians in general have no time for the intellectual musical ‘kitchens’ of Europe. My greatest dream is to hear my Universalist vigil The Veil of the Temple, sung in Russia as well as the Akathist of Thanksgiving and Resurrection.”

“Universalist” is a term Tavener often uses to describe the spirituality of his more recent music. He has become increasingly interested in revealing the “basic truth” that religions share. When I ask Tavener to elaborate, with particular reference to The Veil of the Temple, it becomes clear that, even within this culturally diverse framework, both his music and his faith remain grounded in the traditions of the Orthodox Church.

“My seven hour vigil The Veil of the Temple is constructed like an Orthodox vigil, but within that structure it contains aspects of Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and the primordial religion of the American Indians. It is my dream for this to be performed in a cathedral in Russia, just as it has been performed in Anglican Cathedrals in England. The way forward must now be Universalist, but we must always keep our Orthodox roots.”

Marin Alsop conducts Dvořák, Milhaud, Varèse, LPO RFH 20 Feb 2013

Dvořák, Milhaud, Varèse: Marin Alsop (cond), Ken Burton (cond), London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Adventist Chorale, Royal Festival Hall, London.

Three Spirituals

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9

Milhaud: La creation du Monde

Varèse: Amériques

The programme for this evening’s concert was a mess, and I blame Alex Ross. Its role in the Rest is Noise season is clear enough, but the Europeans-in-America theme was curated with a heavy hand. From a historical perspective, the choices of composers and works were obvious, but they sit well together. On top of that, the idea of beginning with real spirituals and then moving straight into Dvořák Nine meant that the whole programme had to be reversed, with the symphony in the first half and the curiosities in the second.

I’ve never subscribed to the view that African-American spirituals form the melodic and/or spiritual basis of the New World Symphony, so perhaps the first half of this concert was aimed at listeners like me. A gospel choir, the London Adventist Chorale, opened the concert, and their performance segued directly into the opening of the Dvořák. The congruence between the spirituals and the symphony was blatantly engineered by the inclusion of Going Home a setting of the cor anglais solo from Dvořák’s second movement in the form of a spiritual. But even that failed to make the case.

The choir was on top form, and their short performance was a highlight of the concert. With only twenty singers, they struggled to fill the hall with sound, but the sheer beauty of their tone ensured that everybody listened intently. They performed a simple, homophonic setting of Deep River, a jazzy Swing Low Sweet Chariot, and a setting of Going Home that even followed Dvořák’s harmonies and textures.

As the choir ended the orchestra began, but there was little continuity here. In fact the commitment of the singers, the precision of their ensemble and the elegance of their tone, were in stark contrast to the messy, incoherent orchestral playing that followed. Given the challenges of the second half, the majority of the rehearsal time was presumably given over to the Varèse. But did they even run the Dvořák? Considering the consistently high standards the London Philharmonic usually maintains, this was an amazingly sloppy performance. Alsop clearly has a vision for the symphony. She’s keen to drive the outer movements like it’s Beethoven Five, and both of the inner movements are about steady, insistent tempos. But she wholly failed to communicate any of this to the orchestra, and the result was leaden, incoherent playing, poor balance within the orchestra and a distinct lack of poise at almost every turn.

The second half opened with Milhaud’s La creation du Monde, a piece that requires a programme of this sort to justify its presence in an orchestral concert, but that acts as effective palate cleanser between the more substantial works. Milhaud seems to be taunting the orchestral players with all the jazzy licks he expects them to struggle with, but this time the joke was on him, as all the pseudo-jazz came off beautifully. Special mention should go to Andrew Barclay, whose nonchalant kit drumming succinctly set the tone.

The concert ended with a bang, or several rather, in the form of Varèses’s Amériques. As soon as it began it was clear where all the rehearsal time had gone. The London Philharmonic fielded about the largest band you’ll ever see in the Festival Hall, including an unprecedented 12 percussionists (that’s apart from the two timpanists) vying for elbow room at the back of the stage. This time, Alsop set the pace more carefully and paid much greater attention to the many details of the score. Balance within the ensemble was impressive, with those crucial woodwind textures shining through, even against the large brass section. Some of the quieter passages sagged, but the composer should take as much blame for this as the conductor. And the ending was fabulous, with Alsop managing to increase the volume and density of sound, even over the repeated extremes that make up most of the piece, to give the final page that extra impact. An impressive end, then, to a variable concert, one which struggled to make sense on its own terms, despite its pedantically themed programme. Let’s hope that later offerings in The Rest is Noise are more consistently inspired and make a better case for every work, not just the ones with the loudest bells and whistles.

RCM Symphony Orchestra plays Lutosławski, QEH 6 Feb 13

Lutosławski, Debussy, Roussel: RCM Symphony Orchestra, Franck Ollu (cond), QEH, London, 6.2.13

Lutosławski: Jeux venetiens

Debussy: Nocturnes

Lutosławski: Symphony No. 3

Roussel: Bacchus and Ariane Suite No. 2

Sophisticated, urbane and founded on infinite subtleties of expression: everything about Lutosławski’s music suggests that it requires mature, experienced and world-wise performers to achieve its effect. This evening it got something different, a performance from the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra, some members of which were not even born when the composer died (doesn’t that make you feel old?). The ensemble handled the music’s technical demands well, and the more direct approach that the young players took to the music’s expressive side demonstrated that Lutosławski’s aesthetic is not as involved or esoteric as it may sometimes seem.

Jeux venetiens opened the concert, but it wasn’t the best way to start. The piece makes extensive use of Lutosławkski’s distinctive technique of “limited aleatorism”. Those passages proved something of a hurdle for the players. All the notes were there, but they had difficulty maintaining the evenness of the texture, and the balance between the instruments was often problematic. All of the solos were excellent, but for the time being, Lutosławski’s distinctive ensemble formations eluded them.

The orchestra gradually found its feet in the following work, Debussy’s Nocturnes. The links between Debussy’s orchestration and that of Lutosławski were everywhere apparent, with the big difference that the orchestra had little difficulty in achieving what Debussy desired. The strings were on great form, and throughout the second half as well, with near ideal intonation and a unity of ensemble that many professional orchestras struggle to achieve. The Debussy really came to life in the final movement “Sirènes”, for which a female choir from RCM was squeezed onto the stage between the strings and woodwinds. Some shaky intonation and ensemble from the winds in the earlier movements was ironed out for this last movement, and the sound quality from every section brought the piece to life.

But the best was yet to come. Lutosławski’s Third Symphony opened the second half, and was undoubtedly the high point of the concert. The performance was meticulously prepared, and every player was obviously on top of the notes. Unlike in Jeux venetiens, much of the music here is loud and often declamatory, and the orchestra was able to not only give those bold, direct statements, but also find the ideal contrast between those and the more introverted and finely textured passages. The score is something of a concerto for orchestra, regularly shining a spotlight on unexpected corners of the ensemble, and whoever the composer’s attention fell on, they always came up with the goods.

That said, the strings continued to have the upper hand over the winds. The brass in the opening fanfares was just a bit too raucous, and the woodwinds occasionally struggled to keep their intonation in place, although Lutosławski makes things very difficult for them by often writing very loud passages in unison. But the highlight of the evening was the central toccata of the symphony, a complex but highly ordered polyphonic episode for the strings. Again, the strings’ ensemble and intonation was ideal here, but they also achieved a unity of timbre too, not overly dark or heavy, but focussed and crystal clear through all those polyphonic lines.

This evening’s conductor, Franck Ollu, is a new music specialist, which is just as well given the programme. His conducting of Lutosławski’s a Battuta sections (which ironically he led senza Battuta) was very detailed, as if to guide the players through every potential problem in the music. This left him looking frustrated in the ad lib passages, as he had to essentially stand there and let them get on with it. This was particularly apparent in the symphony, in which the bar lines often stop right at the music’s climax, exactly where the conductor would want to intervene the most. Fortunately he was able to have full confidence in his players to continue exactly where he left off, and to take the music in the direction it needed to go.

The concert concluded with the second suite from Roussel’s Bacchus et Ariane. There are Lutosławski connections here too, which just about justified the work’s presence on the programme. It posed few problems for the players, who gave a committed performance, although perhaps lacking a little in sensuality. But it wasn’t the right piece to end the concert, not after the excellent performance of the Third Symphony. The Roussel sounded pretty pedestrian in comparison, and I can’t have been the only person in the audience wishing the evening would end with some further utterance from the Polish master.

The weird, weird world of Pjokken Eide

 Northern Norway is much like Western Cornwall, in that when you visit you’re likely to meet people who could only possibly inhabit the distant corners of the known world. One such man is Pjokken Eide, a senior figure in the civic life of Tromsø. I was there earlier this week to cover the Northern Lights Festival and ran into Pjokken a couple of times. The Festival’s chairman is out of town, so Pjokken is standing in, styling himself the “chairman substitute”. He’s been giving speeches and introductions at a number of formal receptions, and doing so very well, but to look at him it is hard to imagine quite how he fits into the formal, and usually very boring, world of civic receptions and corporate hospitality.

It turns out that Pjokken has just retired from an amazingly varied career. He’s been involved in arts management in Bergen - and if you ever meet him, ask him to tell you the story about how he secured the funding for the Bergen concert hall, a stroke of genius. He also once ran an advertising agency – “You could always tell when an advert was made by Pjokken” somebody in Tromsø told me, and I can well believe it. Most impressively, he spent many years as head of the Norwegian Seafood Council. Here he is inspecting some of the produce (he’s the one on the right, obviously):

But throughout all this, Pjokken has also pursued a bizarre and fascinating music career. In the 60s and 70s he was a member of the band Popol Vuh. Check out this video, in which he “plays” a piano in ways that need to be seen to be believed. Pjokken described the piano to me as “top of the props: no strings, no keys - meant to be seen only from behind”. As far as he can remember, his only contribution to the soundtrack here was the tambourine, although he also played flute and trombone for the band:

He also produced two solo albums around this time and I’m delighted to report that both are on Spotify. They are psychedelic experiences both, in a gentle, folksy sort of way: 

What next? Renaissance music of course. When we met he was full of stories about this album, on which he plays Renaissance trombone, and on one track uses a mousetrap to mimic the sound of self-flagellation in a song dating back to when the plague reached Bergen:

In more recent years the checked tweed suit seems to have become a trademark. He told me that today his musical activities are limited to playing the trombone in an amateur orchestra in Tromsø. However, he marked his retirement from the Norwegian Seafood Council in 2011 with a musical spectacular that the fish traders of Norway are unlikely to forget in a hurry. As a parting gift he wrote them an anthem. As he put it to me “The song is meant to be for the entire seafood industry in Norway what You'll never walk alone is for Liverpool FC.” The lyrics, he says, are “pompous to the extreme”, and, as you’ll hear, Henry Mancini, is channelled at various key moments. Take it away Pjokken!

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