Tavener: Ikon of Light (Reissue)

"Perhaps the time is right for the musical establishment (and the record industry) to begin to recognize Tavener as one of our most gifted and important composers of choral music. I hope so, for a talent so prodigious and special as his appears all too infrequently in today's climate of intellectually orientated creativity. Tavener himself describes his creative processes as an act of prayer, in the same way that the great ikon painters of the Orthodox Church create their timeless windows into the heart of God. This is music that comes directly from the heart rather than from any necessity to entertain the intellect, and though Tavener's musical techniques are as sound as any composer writing today, they become merely the vessel through which to express the spiritual message - in the truest sense of the meaning this is the art that conceals the art.

"The Ikon of Light dates from 1984, and is arguably one of his most sublime creations inspired by Orthodox texts. The subject of the text (by St Simeon the New Theologian) concerning the idea of God as Light has occupied Tavener for some years now but this work is something special. The opening of the piece is one of the most striking beginnings to a choral work that I know of - to describe it as luminous would be an understatement. The Tallis Scholars have a very special affinity and affection for Tavener's music (he has written a number of works with them in mind) and this is evident from their committed performance of this penetrating and visionary work. The austerely beautiful Funeral Ikos is a setting of the Greek funeral sentences for the burial of priests. Its harmonic language and deceptively simple refrain/chorus structure create a moving, nostalgic atmosphere. The disc ends with the nowpopular carol The Lamb, whose gentle stillness and austere but beautiful harmonies prove that Tavener is equally at home in creating miniature ikons as he is in the more majestic awe-inspiring ones.

"… superbly recorded in the Gimell tradition … a moving and richly rewarding programme that deserves to win many friends." Michael Stewart (Gramophone, June 1991)