I worked closely with John Tavener over a period of at least ten years during which he composed many new pieces for the gifted soprano Patricia Rozario, whom he met when she was cast in his opera Mary of Egypt. John became entranced by the rich, numinous quality of her voice and expression especially in the very high tessitura. She called upon me to help her learn and rehearse these new pieces in preparation for performance and later included many existing works. These included To a Child Dancing in the Wind, Akhmatova Songs, Agraphon, A Mini Song Cycle for Gina, Lamentation, Last Prayer and Exaltation, The Child Lived,, Melina, Akhmatova: Requiem, The World, Eis Thanaton, Depart in Peace, Cantus Mysticus, Eternity’s Sunrise, Song of the Angel and others.
John’s central preoccupation was exploring the relationship of man to the presence of the divine on earth and in the universe. This led him through various belief systems and religions and finally to the Greek Orthodox church although he never stopped exploring different kinds of mysticism. John had an intensely enquiring nature; he was always developing and moving forward. I remember his great enthusiasm recounting his meeting with a Native American shaman. Even so, belief was never easy for John despite his outward certainty. One could occasionally glimpse the struggle: contact with the divine clearly ebbed and flowed. There were long, fallow times of doubt and un-belief, influenced and informed no doubt by distressing periods of severe ill health in which he was often close to death.
So, working closely with John in rehearsals at Patricia’s house in north London and many hours in recording sessions was always intense. My mind would invariably become occupied with questions of spirituality, god and the universal for days afterward.
John’s public image has unfavourably coloured perceptions of his music which is, in fact, more complex than is generally recognized. It may be surprizing to many that John employs the dodecaphonic system (12-tone serialism) of musical organization in many of his pieces though often disguised as tonal (as did Berg and Stravinsky, whose music John was very knowledgeable about). He was very skilled with complex canons and imitative compositional procedures and his use of the Greek Orthodox liturgical scale patterns was unusual and arresting. The richness of his harmony as well as gift for melody and musical gestures are all abundantly evident in his vocal and choral music. The combinations of instruments he finds is incredibly striking, atmospheric and very original.
I didn’t have much contact with John during the last years of his life. I was however, listening to a live interview on BBC radio he gave the day before he died. I recall that he seemed to have come to a recognition that much modern music should not to be so easily dismissed, as he yet done before. His search for the divine and its meaning in our lives was as intense and alive as ever. It was a shock when he died the following day but that intensity lives on in his music. It was certainly in evidence at his funeral in Winchester Cathedral and memorial service in Westminster Abbey.