Tavener re-release
2nd July 2009
Canciones españolas are settings of six Spanish folk songs concerning love and death for two voices and ensemble. Written shortly after the choral work Ultimos Ritos, the piece was first performed by the London Sinfonietta in 1972.
Dating from the same year, the seven-note theme for Requiem for Father Malachy came to Tavener during a thunder storm. The piece was written in memory of Father Malachy Lynch of the Carmelite Priory at Allington Castle, Kent, whose teaching and scholarship (which welcomed a wide range of believers, from Methodists to Sufis) was to make a lasting impression on the composer's thinking.
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John Tavener
Canciones españolas / Requiem for Father Malachy
Lyrita
SRCD 311
