John Tavener – God is With Us: A Christmas Proclamation
Baritone Solo, SATB Choir and Organ (1987)
Sir John Tavener was an English composer best known for his extensive output of sacred choral works. He is best known for works such as The Lamb and the Song for Athene which was performed at the funeral of HRH Princess Diana in 1997.
Tavener first came to prominence in 1968 with the completion of his dramatic cantata The Whale. This piece was recorded on the Beatles record label, Apple Records in 1970 after Tavener’s brother Roger, a builder at the time, convinced Ringo Starr to listen to the piece whilst carrying out some work on his house! Tavener continued his relationship with the world of popular music by composing the piece Prayer of the Heart for the Icelandic musician Björk in 2004.
Tavener’s early music was inspired by the works of Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen. Tavener adopted a progressive and, at times, quite angular harmonic language in his early works. In 1977, Tavener converted to the Russian Orthodox Church. Following his conversion, Orthodox theology and liturgical traditions became a major influence on his work This drastically changed the way that his music sounded. The angular, atonal and aggressive music of the 1960s was replaced by a more ‘open’ and tonal sound which Tavener would continue to utilise until his death in 2013. Tavener was also fascinated by both Russian and Greek culture and he explored these areas in works such as Akhmatova Requiem and The Protecting Veil. John Rutter commented that Tavener had
“the very rare gift to bring an audience to a silence”.
God is With Us: A Christmas Proclamation was commissioned by Winchester Cathedral in tribute to Martin Neary, for his work at the Cathedral during 1972-1987. The first performance happened in December 1987, by the choir of Winchester Cathedral conducted by Martin Neary himself.
The piece is written for SATB choir, baritone soloist and organ. The basses open the piece singing a low melismatic passage on the opening line ‘God is with us’. The rest of the choir join in from the second line, all moving together. They repeat the second line two more times, highlighting its importance. The solo voice emerges for the next few lines with a bold and highly decorated solo reminiscent of a Middle Eastern style chant. The choir completely stops at this point, leaving the soloist to their own devices.
As the piece progresses, the soloist becomes more artistically free on their line with phrases such as ‘Prince of Peace’ being highly melismatic. The choir contribute with variations on the opening refrain, again, becoming more complex before coming together for the last two lines of the text, mirroring the movement from the opening proclamation.
Out of nowhere the organ plays an intrusive and unexpected chord after the choir unite to sing ‘Christ is Born’. The choir enter once more with ‘Christ is Born’, which the organ responds to again with another celebratory, although somewhat ‘out of context’ chord. The choir build for the final iteration of the last line before being joined again by the organ, this time resolving together to complete the proclamation.
