John Taverner's
"Beautiful Names"



"Verily, there are ninety-nine names of God, one hundred
minus one. He who enumerates them would get into Paradise."
(Sahih Muslim, Vol. 4, no. 1410 - Muhammad )



Protesters at London Premier of "Beautiful Names"

'Inclusive' is the polite word for John
Tavener's mystical new composition

Performed at
Westminster Cathedral, London
Fretwork, Wigmore Hall, London
Reviewed by Anna Picard

Much as we all like to grumble about modern life, few of us, I expect, would care to live in the early 17th century. Between the pox and the plague, the ducking-stool and the scolds' bridle, worrying about another hike in the mortgage rate actually doesn't seem so bad. Until you consider the music created under royal patronage. In 1707, at the court of King James I, there was a sudden renaissance of the already antiquated In nomine: a devotional study for viols written around a fragment of plainsong from John Taverner's Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas. In 2007, commissioned by HRH Prince Charles, and premiered in Westminster Cathedral by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Jiri Belohlávek, we have the other John Tavener's The Beautiful Names: a setting of the 99 names of Allah. Catholics protested the most about Muslimmusic played in a Christian Church. Inspired by a mystical vision, scored for tenor soloist (the magnificent John Mark Ainsley), double choir, organ, and orchestra, pegged to a descending series of triads by way of a nod to the Hindu philosophy of man's sevenfold constitution, split into nine "tonal zones" of 11 names, and decorated with a Native American powwow drum to symbolize Shiva, The Beautiful Names sums up all that is best and worst in Tavener's music: the numinous block chords for choir, the guilelessness of a single, unaccompanied, declamatory voice, the naively programmatic instrumentation, the hubris, and the spiritual tourism. Russian Orthodox priests attended anyway.. Although Tavener described all religions as "equally senile" in 2004, his appetite for the otherworldly is unsated. So too, it would seem, is his ability to upset those with a less chimerical ap- proach to worship. If Britain's Roman Catho- lics were offended by hearing Allah praised in Westminster Cathedral, it seems reasonable to suppose that those who burned effigies of the Queen in Islamabad on the day of the premiere will not take kindly to an invocation of Shiva in a work based on the Koran. As to the Native Americans, perhaps they'll shrug off Tavener's appropriation of the powwow drum as just another dose of bad medicine. Perverse as Tavener may be in his choice of sub- jects, his word-setting is doggedly literal. Hence As-Salaam (The Source of Peace) is soft and serene, while Al-Mutaka- bbir (The Majestic) bristles with jangling percussion. Acutely aware of how many declamations and responses were still to come, I quickly lost interest in the choral writ- ing, but was arrested by a Composer John Tervener

fugato string interlude, (a near-inversion of the slow movement of Schumann's Second Symphony) the Straussian waaaaaaah of the organ, the Elgarian spread of low brass and the very slight presence of melismas by comparison with Total Eclipse (1999). But sadly, I didn't note how Al-Mu'akhkhir (The Postponer) was handled - but I imagine there might have been a tiny pause before Ainsley's heroic cry. Beyond growing louder and longer, and setting aside variants in language, instrumentation and theosophy, has Tavener's music advanced from the miniature perfection of his four-minute, 1982 Blake setting, The Lamb? I suspect not..

Taverner's music was based on David Ben- tley's book The 99 Beautiful Faces of God.

At the Wigmore Hall, Fret- work's concert of Orlando Gibbons's In nomines and Fantasies proved that the divine is almost invariably better expressed in a few short minutes of poly- phony. No one knows why Gibbons, Ferrabosco and Byrd returned to a form pioneered by Tye and Tallis, or why Taverner's Benedictus proved so fascinating to two suc- cessive generations. Competitiveness is

thought to have played its part among the Jacobean polyphonists, but the measured progress of the cantus firmus in Gibbons's four- and five-part In nomines was, as played by Susanna Pell, a miracle of modesty and devotion. Fretwork could have chosen to underscore the multiple references to Monteverdi, the flashes of chiaroscuro in the intricate counterpoint and the almost Corelli-esque gestures of the three-part Fantasies. Instead, they applied an even, unruffled curve of sound to every phrase, allowing the music to inhale and exhale in perfect, unhurried loveliness. Perhaps in the end only one name is needed for inspiration, whatever your religion. The Independent ( London) 24 June 2007

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To listen to the opening of "Beautiful Names" conducted by the composer himself : http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJyVJfPTeR0 Brief biography of John Tavener http://www.britishclassicalmusic.com/tavener.html

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