Tavener: Akhmatova Requiem; Six Russian Folk Songs
Phyllis Bryn-Julson, soprano; John Shirley-Quirk, bass-baritone; BBC Symphony, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, conductor; Elise Ross, soprano; Nash Ensemble (BBC Radio Classics)
Long before British composer John Tavener achieved popularity with a style of equal parts mysticism and sweetness, he created two demanding masterpieces for voices and orchestra. The first work, inspired by the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church, is as yet unrecorded; the second, a setting of a cycle of poems by Anna Akhmatova (with prayers from the Russian Orthodox funeral service added), here receives its premier recording.
In 1979 and ’80, Tavener wrote in a raw, spare style that attempted to convey what he called the “numbing cold of the poetry.” No one, not even the Russians Sofia Gubaidulina or Galina Ulstvolskaya, could have done better. Without melodrama or sonic cliche, he sustains the mood for more than 45 minutes, which the artists who gave the world premiere a week earlier fill with spell-binding dedication. The London concert performance has the intensity of a great event, and listeners will be let down only by the program booklet that provides an English translation of the text but not the original Russian.
