Tavener, John (1944-2013), an English composer, won popular acclaim in the early 1990’s after The Protecting Veil (1987), a work for cello and string orchestra, became a best-selling record. This deeply spiritual piece drew an unusually warm response from the general public.
John Kenneth Tavener was born on Jan. 28, 1944, in London. In 1960, he became organist at St. John’s Church, Kensington. He studied composition and the organ at the Royal Academy of Music. While still a student, Tavener won an international award in 1965 for his dramatic cantata Cain and Abel. Another cantata, The Whale (1966), was performed with great success by the London Sinfonietta in 1968. This led the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to commission In alium, for high soprano voice, orchestra, and prerecorded tape. In 1969, Tavener became a professor at Trinity College of Music, London.
Tavener’s works in the 1960’s and 1970’s were much influenced by the music of the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and the French composer Olivier Messiaen. The works were imaginative and contemporary in idiom. But in such works as Celtic requiem (1969) and Ultimos ritos (1969-1972), Tavener’s music took on a spiritual quality as he leaned increasingly toward religion. His opera Therese (1973-1976), about Saint Therese of Lisieux, was premiered at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1979.
In 1977, Tavener converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and his compositions became preoccupied with the Russian and Greek rites. Written in a much more accessible style than their predecessors, they include the opera Mary of Egypt (1991) and many choral pieces, including The Lamb (1982) and The Tyger (1987), based on poems by the English poet William Blake. Tavener also composed settings of various parts of the Orthodox liturgy; and several religiously inspired orchestral and chamber works, such as Theophany (1993) and Diodia (1997). In 2000, Tavener was knighted and became known as Sir John Tavener. Tavener died on Nov. 12, 2013.
