John Tavener: Chant For Cello: Cello: Instrumental Work

Work for Solo Cello and Orchestral Cello Section. Premiered by Yo Yo Ma.Quoting Tavener: It was while pondering these traditional dicta that I began to write the opening solo melody for the cello. It is in fact a palindromebecause waking and dying are like two sides of a piece of paper. If you wake up spiritually then you will die to all that is not of God. In the middle section which is also a palindrome the orchestral cellos join in theparadoxical meditation providing a platform as it were while the cello line takes on a much more melismatic and decorative character.In fact the whole work is a series of intellectual contradictions realised by thesimplest of musical metaphysics. Dying life life dying waking up in order to die the solo cello always represents the individual mind dying and the individual mind waking up.Then of a sudden just before the end thesolo chant begins again only to be cut off by a distant sentimental memory the memory of 'the blues' reminding us of ordinary human emotion and of our fallen state. The very end suggests a waking up into a kind of peace (notsoul slumber since after death the soul becomes more intensely alive); but we know nothing of that so the music fades beyond our ears.

This work for viola chorus and percussion was commissioned by the London Symphony Chorus and was first performed in October 1994 at the Barbican Hall London by Yuri Bashmet and the London Symphony Chorus conducted by StephenWestrop.The remarkable text of the Troparion written by the great Byzantine poetess-nun Cassiana was the inspiration of The Myrrh-Bearer. The text informed the architecture of the music. The viola solo represents MaryMagdalen as the cello solo represented the Mother of God on The Protecting Veil. This is where the resemblance between the two pieces ends.In The Myrrh-Bearer the Chorus symbolises ‘us’ the ‘sins of the world’ from‘stylized dictatorships’ to ‘the frivolous inane escapist vanities of the world ’ the to cries of ‘help’ after the cosmic catastrophe and finally reaching an apocalyptic climax in the words ‘We have no king by Caesar;’ adownright condemnation of God in the Earthly power.In a surreal way the Magdalen’s ‘sin’ shines through in the viola music because she recognises the Godhead and the endless ‘Kyrie eleison’ chanted by the semi-chorusrepresents her repentance and whatever is left of a ‘repentant’ world.The Myrrh-Bearer explores the whole range of the viola climbing from the depths up to the highest notes and then falling again at the end after theMagdalen’s recognition of the Risen Christ ‘Rabboni.’The last stroke of the gong in the viola’s final bottom C gives a deliberately ominous end to the piece.This is a special item which is made to order. Please e-mail ourMail Order Department for further information.