• John Tavener
  • Three Shakespeare Sonnets (2010)

  • Chester Music Ltd (World)

This commission was supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture in Iceland and is dedicated to Hilmar Örn Agnarsson and The South Iceland Chamber Choir.

  • SSSAATTBBB
  • 14 min

Programme Note

This set of Three Shakespeare Sonnets was one of the first works that I composed after serious illness in 2007. I wanted to pay tribute to my wife, Maryanna, who nursed me back to some degree of health, so I turned to the Shakespeare Sonnets. I was delighted to find that they brought forth music once again, after I had been silent for so long.
J.T.

This commission was supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture in Iceland and is dedicated to Hilmar Örn Agnarsson and the South Iceland Chamber Choir.
The work was first performed by the South Iceland Chamber Choir at Southwark Cathedral, London, on 15th November 2013.

Reviews

Less mystical in conception than most of Tavener's work, the Sonnets nevertheless follow the characteristic Tavener pattern of frugal inspiration stretched out over a broader canvas than one would have thought possible, or advisable.
Barry Millington, London Evening Standard
18th November 2013
In it he had chosen to create an opposition between soprano soloists singing very high angular lines and the rest of the choir laying down a soft carpet of continuous sound, which suited the bitter ironies of the sonnet.
Michael Church, The Independent
17th November 2013
...the music inhabited a familiar spiritual world, with haunting high-lying soprano lines featuring in the first and third against gentle hummed chords.
Hugo Shirley, The Telegraph
16th November 2013