I went to a school where an atheist physics teacher expressed his enthusiasm for the work of John Tavener at a school assembly. It's no surprise that secularists are as enthused by the classical canon even if a large part of it was inspired by Judaeo-Christian scripture. What was surprising was that with much of Tavener's music, the religious connotations could not so easily be cleaved away. I had recently acquired Svyati on disc. The music was beautiful - but the constant references in pieces such as Eternal Memory to lost paradises left me cold.
And yet, even if I cannot be a part of a spiritual project, I admired Tavener for trying to create the transcendent. Tavener was not as backward looking as some of his detractors insisted. Late Carter and Webern were genuine enthusiasms. The drones and scales (Eastern and Western) that are the trademark of Tavener's music show a composer who was a true synthesist. The Indian elements to his music for a lay person such as myself seemed 'whole' rather superficial. The palindromes that pervade pieces such as The Hidden Treasure and Chant seem to exemplify the notion of beauty as the splendour of order (to paraphrase C.F. Ramuz on Stravinsky). Towards the end of Svyati the last note of the three-note minor scale motif played on the cello is raised by a semitone to A-natural. There is no resolution but an ascent towards silence.
The same three notes that conclude Svyati open the The Protecting Veil. Instead of a fading into silence the held A-natural seems to become ever more intense. It comforts but not because it is a relaxing piece. There is shade as well as light. In a secular age it is enough that Tavener achieved fame on his own terms and created a body of work distinctively his own.
