Tavener
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Transcript of Tavener
Tavener The Lamb
© Nick Redfern www.nickredfern.co.uk Contact: [email protected]
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AS Music
Unit 3: Developing musical
understanding
A guide for students
Vocal music 2010
John Tavener The Lamb
Tavener The Lamb
© Nick Redfern www.nickredfern.co.uk Contact: [email protected]
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Developing musical understanding works for 2010 .... 3 Instrumental music ............................................................................. 3 Vocal music.......................................................................................... 3 About this document .................................................. 3 Tavener ...................................................................... 4 Text............................................................................ 5 Style........................................................................... 5 Context....................................................................... 6 Programme Note ...................................................................... 6 Voices......................................................................... 6 Setting ....................................................................... 7 Metre, tempo & rhythm .............................................. 7 Texture....................................................................... 9 Theme ........................................................................ 9 Pitch organisation .................................................... 11 Tonality .................................................................... 14 Harmony .................................................................. 16 Structure .................................................................. 17 Phrasing................................................................... 17 Score ........................................................................ 18
Tavener The Lamb
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Developing musical understanding works for
2010
Instrumental music
1. Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, movement 1
22. Mozart Piano Sonata in B flat, 1st movement
19. Poulenc Sonata for Horn, Trumpet & Trombone
9. Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8, movement 1
Vocal music
35. Monteverdi Ohimè, se tanto amate
39. Fauré Après un rêve
32. Tavener The Lamb
53. Ray Davies Waterloo Sunset
56. Van Morrison Tupelo Honey
63. Familia Valera Miranda Se quema la chumbambá
About this document
This document is designed to support the study of AS Level Music (edexcel)
Unit 3 Developing musical understanding, Vocal Music. The guide is available
at www.nickredfern.co.uk and is produced in conjunction with student
workbooks, PowerPoint documents and other related material. I have tried
not to include detail which is extraneous to the exam, such as dates and
biographical detail, analysis of text, etc.
For further information or enquiries please contact me at
Tavener The Lamb
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Tavener
Born London 1944.
John Tavener has been active as a composer since the 1960’s but has
become a prominent feature of the contemporary music throughout the past
two decades. During this period the popularity of reflective, tonal and
spiritually inclined music has increased, spurred by airplay on Classic FM.
Composers including Arvo Pert and Henryk Górecki have also gained greater
prominence with their minimalist inclined New Simplicity.
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Text
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Style
The stylistic features of Tavener’s evident in this work are:
Stark simplicity
Clear tonal structures
Unambiguous texture
Simple melodic component
Use of repetition
Modal inflection
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Slow, contemplative tempi
Sacred text
Simple rhythmic structures
Context
Programme Note
The Lamb was written twenty-two years ago for my then 3-year old nephew,
Simon. It was composed from seven notes in an afternoon. Blake's child-like
vision perhaps explains The Lamb's great popularity in a world that is starved
of this precious and sacred dimension in almost every aspect of life.
John Tavener, 2004
Voices
The score specifies Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass although in the Anthology
recording the two upper voices are clearly sung by young voices,
predominantly choirboys. This lends a purity of tone, the younger voices
lacking vibrato and depth of colour.
The ranges Tevener allows the voices are highly restricted
The range of the Soprano and Alto
are extraordinarily limited. This is
in direct relation to the
monothematic nature of their
music, the sheer limited amount of
notes available. The limited range
also reflects the simplicity of spirit
inherent in the text.
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The Bass has the greatest range although the general span of notes is kept
within a major ninth (A) below the top B. Tavener skilfully confines the use
of the bottom E for the cadence points of the chorale refrains where the
rich sonority lends a warm and definitive closing at the central and final bars
of the work.
Setting
The setting is almost exclusively syllabic, where each syllable in the text is
articulated by a single note.
Metre, tempo & rhythm
The tenet of the work is simplicity. This music is simplicity in its most
eloquent and unaffected guise and is intended to be a direct musical
transformation of the text although Tavener chooses not to reflect the joyous
and affirmative sentiments of the second stanza. With this is mind, Tavener
has chosen a pulse the slowness of which is quite rare. He offers this advice:
With extreme tenderness – flexible –
always guided by the words (= c.40)
The Tenor and Bass have a greater spread
of notes but are nonetheless restrained
and highly conservative. However, in
order to preserve balance between the
parts the upper ranges of the voices are
purposely kept well within the
conventional confines for choral writing.
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The rhythmic setting of the text appears to be intended to recreate the effect
of a text declaimed in a simple manner. The directions imply that even the
basic rhythmic character of the setting could be made yet more flexible and
naturalistic if the inherent rhythm of the text is to be observed.
There are no indications as to a metre, although it is possible to break the
work down into metric terms. The first four bars, for instance, could be
written:
I have grouped the quavers according to the natural syllabic stresses of the
text. What is revealed by this process is the prosaic rhythm that is revealed,
particularly in bars 3 – 4, where the music appears un-poetic and even
childish. So Tavener’s ploy of using ungrouped quavers, even where
syllables are spread over two notes such as lamb and who in bar 1, created
a less rigid rhythmic language. The omission of metre is also a clear ploy to
encourage a naturalistic and, using Tavener’s term, flexible interpretation. I
have conducted this work and it is remarkably easy to direct and for the
singer to follow.
In the choral refrains Tavener employs rhythmic augmentation where
the three statements of the refrain material (bars 7 – 9) are stated in
quavers, crotchets and dotted crotchets, the final statements all rhythmic
values are doubled to become crotchets, minims and dotted minims (bar
10).
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Texture
Tavener is meticulous in his simplicity and this is aptly displayed in his stark
use of texture.
Bar 1 Monophonic
Bar 2 Two-part homophony
Bars 3 – 4 Monophonic
Bars 5 – 6 Two-part homophony
Bars7 – 10 Four-part homophony
Bar 11 Two-part octave unison (Soprano + Alto/Tenor + Bass)
Bar 12 Two-part homophony in octave unison (Soprano + Tenor/ Alto +
Bass)
Bar 13-14 Two-part octave unison (Soprano + Alto/Tenor + Bass)
Bar 15 -16 Two-part homophony in octave unison (Soprano + Tenor/ Alto +
Bass)
Bars 17 – 20 Four-part homophony
Theme
The work can be considerer to be monothematic, that is there is only one
theme which is used exclusively throughout the piece. This may not be
immediately apparent but I will explore the thematic transformation later.
The basic theme is exposed in bar 1 and immediately establishes the
uncomplicated and intentionally naïve musical discourse.
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The theme pivots quite deliberately about the tonic, G, and consist of the
following intervals
The theme itself can be divided into two parts: the major 3rd and Second
and the minor 3rd and 2nd.
The major part ascends then descends
The minor part descends then ascends
This is far from circumstantial as this process defines the pitch organisation
of the greater part of The Lamb.
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Pitch organisation
The Lamb is intentionally and rigorously simple in all aspects of its setting.
However, underlying this simplicity there exists a highly schematic method of
pitch organisation. The theme is exposed in bar 1 in its prime form by the
Sopranos:
In bar 2 the theme is stated in the Sopranos with the Altos singing a perfect
inversion of the theme:
The inversion is created by taking the intervallic information of the prime
theme and working the counter-melody in contrary motion to the melody.
So a step up of a major third is mirrored by a step down by a major third.
I shall refer to these two melodic components as: upper line Prime and
lower line Inversion.
The effect on the tonality is startling in its dissonance with the inversion
sounding in E flat major causing bitonality, where two keys are sounded
simultaneously.
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Bars 3 - 4 reveal further compositional complexity. Firstly bar 4 where the
following is stated in the Sopranos:
This material is a hybrid of the prime and inversion
The new material consequently retains the intervallic information, the DNA,
of the prime theme:
I will refer to this material as hybrid.
Note the prevalence of thirds, both actual and enharmonic.
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Bar 4 reveals yet more thematic transformation with the notes of the hybrid
reversed forming a melodic retrograde.
I will refer to bar 4 as hybrid retrograde.
Bars 5 – 6 complete the transformative process.
Bar 5 has the Sopranos singing the hybrid with the Altos singing a perfect
inversion of the hybrid.
Bar 6 has the Sopranos singing the hybrid retrograde with the Altos
singing a perfect inversion of the hybrid retrograde.
Note how the various permutations of the theme maintain the focal point of
the tonic, G, at the beginning and end of the material, despite the melodic
transformations resulting in a form of chromatic modality.
The theme then returns in the chorale refrain at bars 7 – 10 in its prime
form, three statements as bar 1 and the final statement in rhythmic
augmentation, quavers becoming crotchets, crotchets becoming minims.
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Here the music is modal E minor.
Tonality
The tonality of the work operates in direct correlation with the works
structure and pitch organisation. The governing tonalities are G major and
modal E minor.
Prime: G major
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Prime + Inversion: Bitonal G and E flat major centred on G
Hybrid/Hybrid Retrograde: Chromatic mode centring on G
Hybrid/Hybrid Retrograde plus inversions: Chromatic mode centring
on G
Chorale refrain: modal E minor
The work rests on E minor at the central and final bars of the work.
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Harmony
The resulting harmony for the superimposition of the prime over the
inversion of the theme creates a curiously haunting bitonal statement
where the upper voice is in G major and the lower in E flat major.
The augmented fifth between E flat and B and the dissonant diminished
third between F sharp and A flat, which sounds a major second, are unusual.
These two intervals (E flat/B and F#/A flat) are present in bars 5 – 6 where
the hybrid and hybrid retrogrades are superimposed over their perfect
inversions.
The harmony of the chorale refrain is more concordant and acts as a foil
against the chromatic dissonance of the verse. There are four statements of
this chorale music, the final in rhythmic augmentation. Note the use of
suspension and double suspension which have an expressive quality as
does the unprepared 7 in chord I7.
Double & single suspension
Unprepared 7
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Structure
The structure is defined by the tonality, texture and text, which are all
inextricably linked. It is possible to view the work in terms of a two-part
structure I will refer to as Verse and Chorale Refrain. The two part
structure is then repeated with some modification:
A Bars 1 – 6 Verse 1
Bars 7 – 10 Chorale Refrain 1
A1 Bars 11 – 16 Verse 2
Bars 17 – 20 Chorale refrain 2
Phrasing
The phrasing of this work is unusual as the setting of the text is quite
inflexible despite the intended rhythmic language requiring flexibility of
pulse. Each bar is a phrase in itself, although it is possible to couple bars 3
– 4 and 5 – 6 as a two bar phrase. However, owing to the extreme
slowness of the tempo it is difficult not to use the bar lines as breathing
points.