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Track(s) taken from CDA67475

Butterfly Dreams. Haiku by Kokku

composer
author of text

Polyphony, Stephen Layton (conductor)
Recording details: January 2004
Temple Church, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: September 2004
Total duration: 0 minutes 36 seconds
 

Reviews

‘Polyphony fields 25 singers for this project and for this repertory, I think you've got about a good a choir as you could possibly get. Stephen Layton directs with clarity and sensitivity. In fact, his expert pacing is the main reason for this recording's success. This is one of Layton's best CDs yet, and that's saying something’ (BBC Radio 3 CD Review)

‘The brilliant, white, celestial light Tavener so effectively evoked earlier in the decade had a chill core. Here—if you will bear with the synaesthesiac overtones—gold seeps in, along with the deep blue traditionally associated with portraits of the Virgin’ (Gramophone)

‘Stephen Layton's heartfelt commitment to the composer's music brings forth shimmering performances from his excellent choir Polyphony. If you enjoy radiant choral writing and singing, then this is the disc for you’ (Choir & Organ)

‘There's no doubt about the quality of the performances. Tavener finds devoted interpreters in Polyphony who produce some of the most beautiful choral singing you could ever hope to hear. And all is captured in a glowing recording’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘For the Tavener devotee, among whose number I include myself, this disc is an essential survey of the composer's recent musical concerns, and contains some splendid new music’ (International Record Review)

‘Stephen Layton's superb choir, Polyphony, does wonders in bringing variety to a sequence of John Tavener's works for small chorus that might easily have seemed too slow and meditative’ (The Guardian)

‘The power of Tavener at his best is fully unlocked by Polyphony and Stephen Layton, whose sensitivity to the sacred and human in his music communicates in every work on this disc’ (Classic FM Magazine)

‘Polyphony's singing is immaculate, captured in the resonant acoustic of the Temple Church in glorious recorded sound. It's a hard man who would not be moved by this disc’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘Performed with conviction by Stephen Layton's Polyphony. His professional choir manages to convey the hypnotic serenity at the heart of Tavener's latest works, while packing a punch in their more dramatic moments, a strategy supported by Hyperion's A-grade recorded sound’ (Music Week)
Butterfly Dreams, Schuon Hymnen and Shûnya, all written in 2003, are representative of a genuinely new phase in Tavener’s work, a phase which has reached its climax thus far in the seven-hour-long Veil of the Temple. Butterfly Dreams is an exuberant, light-filled piece setting texts chosen by Alan Barrett concerning butterflies. Though it may initially appear to be a purely secular work, in fact the composer himself regards it as sacred, butterflies in this context being seen as symbols and even vehicles for the sacred. There are, in addition, many musical connections with earlier works by Tavener – the ‘shadow canon’ of the first and last movements, and even more the second movement, ‘Haiku by Kokku’, recall the second of the Two Hymns to the Mother of God; the ‘variations on a scale’ that characterize ‘Haiku by Issa’ are familiar from many works, and the resonant chordal refrains of Pavel Friedmann’s The Butterfly echo the paradisical call of Funeral Ikos.

from notes by Ivan Moody © 2004

Butterfly Dreams, Schuon Hymnen et Shûnya, tous écrits en 2003, sont emblématiques d’une phase authentiquement nouvelle de l’œuvre de Tavener, une phase qui a, jusqu’à présent, trouvé son apogée dans The Veil of the Temple, une pièce longue de sept heures. Butterfly Dreams est une œuvre exubérante, emplie de lumière, qui met un musique des textes relatifs aux papillons, choisis par Alan Barrett. Quoiqu’elle puisse paraître, de prime abord, exclusivement profane, Tavener la considère, lui, comme sacrée, les papillons étant alors perçus comme des symboles, voire des véhicules du sacré. À quoi s’ajoutent maintes connexions musicales avec des œuvres antérieures du compositeur: le «canon fantôme» des premier et dernier mouvements et, surtout, le deuxième mouvement, «Haiku by Kokku», rappellent la seconde des Two Hymns to the Mother of God. De même, les «variations sur une gamme», caractéristiques de «Haiku by Issa», figurent dans maintes œuvres, cependant que les refrains résonants, en accords, de The Butterfly de Pavel Friedmann font écho à l’appel paradisiaque de Funeral Ikos.

extrait des notes rédigées par Ivan Moody © 2004
Français: Hyperion Records Ltd

Butterfly Dreams, Schuon Hymnen und Shûnya, die alle 2003 komponiert wurden, repräsentieren deutlich eine neue Phase in Taveners Schaffen, eine Phase, die bisher ihren Höhepunkt in dem siebenstündigen Veil of the Temple erreicht hat. Butterfly Dreams ist ein ausgelassenes, leichtherziges Stück auf Texte über Schmetterlinge, die von Alan Barrett ausgewählt wurden. Die Butterfly Dreams mögen vorerst den Eindruck eines rein weltlichen Werkes erwecken. Der Komponist selber aber betrachtete sie eigentlich als ein geistliches Werk, in dem Schmetterlinge in diesem Kontext als Symbole und sogar Vehikel für Geistliches stehen. Darüber hinaus gibt es viele musikalische Anknüpfungspunkte an Taveners frühere Werke: Die „Schattenkanons“ des ersten und letzten Satzes, und mehr noch sogar der zweite Satz, „Haiku von Kokku“, rufen die zweite Hymne der Two Hymns to the Mother of God in Erinnerung. Die dem „Haiku von Issa“ zugrunde liegenden „Variationen über eine Tonleiter“ kennt man aus vielen Werken Taveners, und der klangvolle Chorrefrain zu Pavel Friedmanns The Butterfly enthält Anklänge an den Anruf des Paradieses aus den Funeral Ikos.

aus dem Begleittext von Ivan Moody © 2004
Deutsch: Elke Hockings

Other albums featuring this work

Tavener: Choral Music
This album is not yet available for downloadSACDA67475Super-Audio CD
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