EXPRESSING the inexpressible is one of the artist’s principal functions, and few contemporary composers have put as much time into the task as John Tavener. Whatever follows in his output, The Veil of the Temple in its original form will remain a magnum opus: an eight-hour vigil for church performance, taking the listener, slow step by slow step, on a journey from darkness to light, dusk to dawn, towards the universal God.
Given the fanfare of its debut at Temple Church in London in June and July 2003, a CD recording was inevitable. At least a slimline CD recording: RCA Red Seal’s two-disc set (8287666 1542), assembled from those first performances conducted by Stephen Layton, distils the epic into its two-and-a- half-hour concert version, premiered at last year’s Proms.
Sitting at home in a comfortable chair, feet up perhaps, one misses witnessing the musical theatre of singers and instrumentalists processing or variously dispersed. But there are possible gains as well: we’re not so distracted visually, and what felt sprawling and repetitive in the vast Albert Hall begins to sound more cogent.
Performances? Thrilling, across the range from the Temple choir and the Holst Singers to Patricia Rozario’s stratospheric soprano and John Thurgood’s mighty, baying Tibetan horn. Strength and value of the music? As a memento of a spectacular event, this CD set is a winner; but to revisit it often and whole requires, I suspect, either a listener with a peculiarly iron will or one sunk into a trance.
More of the ineffable follows with the Takács Quartet’s last instalment in their Beethoven cycle (Decca 470 849-2), devoted to the late quartets (plus their trailblazer, Op 95): music ever-mysterious and powerful. What enjoyable and compelling performances these are: strongly rhythmic, meltingly tender when required, and always firmly constructed.
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Practised listeners may encounter several shocks. The final chord of Op 127 arrives more speedily than usual; occasional notes and rhythms elsewhere are slightly different. These aren’t mistakes: the musicians are playing from a new edition. But then this music is always new, always exploratory; and the Takács Quartet couldn’t be better guides.