Customer Rating: 
Summary: Haunting music
Comment: I have listened to this CD on and off since it was released 7 years ago and, even though the music may appear repetitive, I have not tired of it. I think this is because, like great liturgical music (admittedly all the work is not liturgical), it is ecstatically and transcendentally focused. For me, this music is winter music, it gathers one into oneself, but at the same time, it draws one out of oneself. And, that is what great music does. My impression though is that the music is not sung and recorded as sublimely as some of the other works in this Naxos series - I am thinking of the Britten and the Howells CDs, which are beautiful. And yet, it is well worth the buy!
Customer Rating:
Summary: beautiful but repetitive music
Comment: On one level this is a great CD. Under the direction of Christopher Robinson the Choir of St John's College Cambridge have drunk deeply of the idiom of John Tavener's choral works, which combine Russian intensity with the classic British Choral tradition. They have transported themselves into his musical world and their performances are quite different than those on other CDs in this series of works by more conventionally British composers such as Stanford and Finzi: more urgent, more rapt, more other worldly.On the other hand the limitations of John Tavener's style are revealed. He talks a good talk about the wrong turning western music took at the beginning of the modern era and about returning to an earlier universal musical purity. But what does he give us? By the time I am half way through this disc I feel that I am being sentenced to an hour of stair walking as I hear yet another ascent and descent of the same scales.
There is no doubt that taken one at a time these pieces are works of beauty. But taken together their repetitive nature is made obvious.
There are also problems with the sound levels on the first few tracks. On God With Us the intrusions by the organ towards the end are too loud, and in Song for Athene there is too great a dynamic range. These tracks require the listener to have one hand on the volume control. After that things improve.
There is one obvious piece of wrong information on the back cover of the CD. John Tavener is described as having a strong Greek Orthodox faith, when in fact he was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church for many years. The booklet notes are of a good standard and add to appreciation of the works
Customer Rating:
Summary: An excellent collection of John Tavener's work
Comment: All the Tavener "standards" are here (Song for Athene, The Lamb etc.) plus some less common pieces. The Funeral Ikos is the most wonderful thing I've ever heard, the Christmas Proclamation is simply spine-tingling and the Magnificat heart-stopping. The Svyati to finish it with - excellent.....
