Friday 25 June is an auspicious day for the music of the late John Tavener. La Noche Oscura for oboe, countertenor and strings was written a year before Tavener’s death and will receive its premiere at Snape Maltings with soloists Nicholas Daniel and Andrew Watts.
The programme with Britten Sinfonia and conductor Sian Edwards also includes the string orchestra version of Tavener’s anthem Mother of God, here I stand, originally heard in his all-night vigil The Veil of the Temple. Tavener was very fond of the music of Handel, and the concert also features Handel’s What though I trace each herb and flower, an air from the oratorio Solomon, which was Tavener’s favourite work. It is from Solomon that Tavener was inspired to write his Little Reliquary for G.F.H. which in his own words is a ‘humble tribute to Handel based on a misremembered quote’.
Read the feature, ‘Dark night: why it took so long to hear John Tavener’s La Noche Oscura’ by Nicholas Daniel, as originally published in The Guardian, here.
