As one who has slept (Tavener) - from CDA67475 - Hyperion Records

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Winchester Cathedral Choir, Andrew Lumsden (conductor)» More

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)

The earliest piece in this anthology, As one who has slept (1996), comes almost at the end of this long chain of works. It deals, in an extraordinarily transparent fashion and with the simplest of musical means, with Christ’s harrowing of Hell: the period, commemorated on Holy Saturday, when the agony of the Crucifixion is behind us and we are in a state of expectancy before the proclamation of the Resurrection.

Située presque en bout de cette chaîne d’œuvres, As one who has slept (1996), la plus ancienne pièce de la présente anthologie, évoque, d’une manière extraordinairement transparente et avec les moyens musicaux les plus simples, la descente aux enfers du Christ: ce moment est commémoré le Samedi saint, quand le supplice de la Crucifixion est derrière nous et que nous sommes dans l’expectative, avant la proclamation de la Résurrection.

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

Das früheste Stück der auf dieser CD eingespielten Werke, As one who has slept (Spur, 1996), entstand fast am Ende dieser langen Werkreihe. Es dreht sich, in einer außerordentlich transparenten Art und Weise und mit den einfachsten musikalischen Mitteln, um Christus’ Abstieg zur Hölle: jenen am Karsamstag beschriebenen Zeitraum, wenn die Qualen der Kreuzung hinter uns liegen und wir von den Erwartungen auf die Verkündung der Auferstehung erfüllt sind.

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

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Recording details: January 2004
Temple Church, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: September 2004
Total duration: 4 minutes 3 seconds