John Tavener

Among the leading commercially successful composers of the modern era, John Tavener pursued an extraordinary path blending musical innovation with spiritual transformation. Following his embrace of Orthodox Christianity, he developed a distinctive personal language marked by gradual, nearly minimalist expansion of melodic lines. A substantial portion of his output was intended for liturgical use. His scores frequently called for unusual groupings of performers, as in The Apocalypse of 1993, scored for tenor, bass, soprano, mezzo-soprano, solo saxophonists, male choir, countertenor choir, organ, brass, string quartet, and string ensemble. He was widely viewed as an idiosyncratic eclectic whose work fused mystical and populist elements.

Tavener entered the world in Wembley Park, outside London. Contrary to longstanding family tradition, he was most likely unrelated to the Tudor composer John Taverner. Raised Protestant, he adopted Catholicism in early adulthood. He trained in piano, organ, and composition before pursuing further studies with Solomon, Lennox Berkeley, and Lumsdaine at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1968 Apple Records issued his The Whale after the piece caught the attention of both John Lennon and Ringo Starr. The following year he assumed a professorship in composition at Trinity College.

In 1974 he entered an Orthodox marriage with Greek ballet student Victoria Maragopoulou; eight months later she departed for Greece, although the couple stayed legally wed and on cordial terms for the next ten years. He continued to seek guidance from the Orthodox priest who had performed the ceremony. Several compositions from this time, among them The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, reflected Orthodox or Russian influences, and in 1977 he formally joined the Orthodox Church.

Once he regained his strength after a stroke in 1980, Tavener began to regard himself as an Orthodox composer. In 1981 he encountered Mother Thekla, an Orthodox abbess based in North Yorkshire. That same year he completed Prayer for the World, which he later characterized as his most radical score. The subsequent Ikon of Light of 1983, written for chorus and string trio, met with strong approval, yet Tavener continued to feel his Russian Orthodox faith fell short when measured against that of Arvo Pärt, a lifelong adherent often regarded as the more authentic of the two. Following sessions with an Orthodox psychoanalyst, he undertook the large-scale Orthodox Vigil Service of 1984, calling for priests, chorus, and handbells.

Tavener’s mother passed away in 1985; although he declared he would stop composing, his productivity barely faltered. Works that soon appeared included the widely recorded The Protecting Veil of 1987, scored for cello and strings. Not long after completing Thrinos for solo cello in 1990, he underwent surgery to replace a faulty heart valve. Once recovered, he resumed work with Mother Thekla on Let’s Begin Again, finished in 1995. After his first marriage was annulled on grounds of non-consummation, he wed Maryanna Schaefer in 1991. The 1992 Virgin Classics recording of The Protecting Veil became a top-selling classical album and prompted additional releases from other labels. By the middle of the decade his British popularity approached that once enjoyed by Benjamin Britten at his height, while his reputation continued to spread abroad. Following his father’s death in 1996, he composed the Funeral Canticle in tribute. Tavener discs maintained steady sales in both Britain and the United States, and in 1999 he started work on Fall and Resurrection. His seventy-minute liturgical drama Lamentations and Praises, commissioned by the American ensemble Chanticleer, appeared on disc in 2002. A severe heart attack in 2007 further compromised his health, leading to his death in 2013.