'Excellent choir sally forth' - 27.05.03

[CD Pre-Release: ‘Mother and Child’] Geoff Brown: 27 May 2003, The Times

It’s hard to recall now that the mystical John Tavener, he of the long flowing hair and music, ever wrote prankish pieces in the 1960s such as The Whale and Grandma’s Footsteps. The larks stopped once Tavener was received into the Greek Orthodox Church in 1976. Since then, whether long or short, dramatic or flatulent, the pieces he sees as steps towards the understanding of God have never stopped coming.

There is the 12-minute Mother and Child, due for its premiere on June 6 at the Salisbury Festival, and already included in a new recital by Tenebrae. The 30-strong Tenebrae give us a demonstrably warmer sound. For most of Mother and Child (SIGCD501) Nigel Short’s excellent choir sally forth unaccompanied, fearlessly mounting scary harmonic progressions, steadily raising the volume until joined in ecstasy by the organ and a Hindu temple gong. This piece makes a powerful impact. So on this anthology’s other tracks do pieces by Tavener’s fellow Brits Jonathan Dove and Giles Swayne.