Ikon of Light is scored for double choir and string trio, heard from a distance. The sonorous choral textures have a strongly mystical spirit which radiantly expresses the Greek concept of light. The piece was written for The Tallis Scholars, and this is its first recording.
John Tavener was born in 1944, educated at Highgate School and studied composition with Sir Lennox Berkeley and David Lumsdaine. He was organist at the Presbyterian Church of St John’s, Kensington for over fifteen years; but in 1976 he converted to the Russian arm of the Orthodox Church, while at the same time establishing close links with the Greek Church, and this connection has inspired almost all of his most recent music. He first came to the view of the general public with The Whale in 1965/6, which has received many subsequent performances. His opera Thérèse was presented at Covent Garden in 1979 and Akhmatova: Requiem was given at the Proms and at the Edinburgh Festival in 1980.
Ikon of Light is one of the most substantial works that Tavener has written under the inspiration of Orthodox texts. This text is by St Simeon the New Theologian (942-1022), perhaps the greatest mystical writer in the history of the Orthodox Church and one of the most outstanding theologian-poets in the whole Christian tradition. All his writings are dominated by the theme of God as Light, and this concept is abundantly in evidence here. The opening word ‘phos’ means ‘light’, and the concluding word ‘epiphania’ literally means ‘shining forth’. Tavener has said that in Ikon of Light he attempted to express what is essentially inexpressible, but that he has heightened the mystical element in the text by giving it a ritualistic treatment. In addition to the choral sounds there is a string trio which ‘can be thought of as the soul yearning for God’.
The result is music set in a repeating framework, which yet gives Tavener every opportunity to display his melodic powers and his ability to use the forces resonantly.
1. A Hymn to the Mother of God
2. Hymn for the Dormition of the Mother of God
3. The Lamb
4. The Tyger
Ikon of Light:
5. Movement 1 - FOS I, DOXA
6. Movement 2 - PIU INTENSITA
7. Movement 3 - TRISAGION I
8. Movement 4a - MYSTIC PRAYER TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
9. Movement 4b
10. Movement 4c
11. Movement 4d
12. Movement 4e
13. Movement 5 - TRISAGION II
14. Movement 6 - FOS II
15. Movement 7 - EPIPHANIA
16. Today the Virgin
17. Eonia
