John Tavener stands alone in British music, a mystic, iconoclast and visionary who connected with a mass public. His music achieved a timeless quality whose spiritual inspiration drew from diverse faiths and traditions. This concert concludes a day-long celebration of the extraordinary man and his music.
Nicolas Alstaedt performs the beautiful soaring cello solo in Tavener's The Protecting Veil under conductor Alexander Vedernikov. Superlative soloists Marie Arnet and Brindley Sherratt lend their voices to Tavener's Akhmatova: Requiem. Here the composer added prayers from the Russian Orthodox funeral services to the original Russian text by Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova's Requiem.
