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Offer,Davies, Peter Maxwell: Taverner

Martyn Hill (Taverner), David Wilson-Johnson (Jester), Stephen Richardson (Henry VIII), Fiona Kimm (Virgin Mary), Michael Chance (Priest/God), Quentin Hayes (White Abbot) & Peter Sidhom (Richard Taverner)

Fretwork, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta Voices, His Majestys Sagbutts...

The opera is full… bitterly ironic juxtapositions, such as the 'holy' chanting from monks heard against the cynical Realpolitik of the negotiations between King and the Cardinal. Making the... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2010, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 23rd Nov 2009
Catalogue No: NMCD157
Label: NMC
Length: 1 hour 56 minutes

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2010

Finalist - Opera
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April 2010

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Davies, Peter Maxwell: Taverner

Work length1:56:52

Album only

$34.95

Martyn Hill (tenor), Quentin Hayes (baritone), Peter Sidhom (bass), Fiona Kimm (mezzo-soprano), Michael Chance (countertenor), Tom Jackman (treble), Stuart Kale (tenor), Stephen Richardson (bass), David Wilson-Johnson (baritone), John Graham Hall (tenor), Peter Hall (tenor)
London Voices, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Fretwork, New London Children's Choir
Oliver Knussen

Act I Scene 1: A Courtroom: My Lord (John Taverner, White Abbot, Council, Richard Taverner, Rose, Priest, Boy, Cardinal)

Track length19:18

Album only

$5.15

Act I Scene 1: Transition

Track length1:30

$1.00

$1.30

Act I Scene 2: The Chapel: Hoc opus est Johanni Taverni in regione Lindi nati (Monks, John Taverner)

Track length6:01

$1.00

$1.30

Act I Scene 2: Transition

Track length3:16

$1.00

$1.30

Act I Scene 3: The Throne Room: Our good Lord Cardinal (King, Jester, Cardinal)

Track length15:10

Album only

$5.15

Act I Scene 4: The Throne Room: John Taverner, what does the Lord require of thee? (Death, John Taverner, White Monk, Black Monk, Antichrist)

Track length6:58

$1.00

$1.30

Act I Scene 4: The Throne Room: But this is not enough, John (Death, Richard Taverner, Rose, John Taverner)

Track length6:57

$1.00

$1.30

Act I Scene 4: The Throne Room: Behold his body, in every place (Demons, God the Father, Archangels, Joking Jesus, Mary, John Taverner)

Track length5:48

$1.00

$1.30

Act I Scene 4: The Throne Room: Taverner, sign your confession (Death, John Taverner)

Track length5:11

$1.00

$1.30

Act II Scene 1: The Courtroom: My Lord Abbot (John Taverner, White Abbot, Richard Taverner, Council, Rose, Priest, Boy, Death)

Track length6:36

$1.00

$1.30

Act II Scene 1: Transition

Track length3:03

$1.00

$1.30

Act II Scene 2: The Throne Room: How fares our good Lord Cardinal? (King, Cardinal, Archbishop, Jester)

Track length9:55

$1.50

$2.60

Act II Scene 3: Transition

Track length1:01

$1.00

$1.30

Act II Scene 3: The Throne Room: Videbat ergo Dominus in civitate iniquitatem et (White Abbot, Monks, John Taverner, Captain)

Track length8:00

$1.50

$2.60

Act II Scene 3: Transition

Track length1:18

$1.00

$1.30

Act II Scene 4: The Market-place in Boston, Lincolnshire: This is the work of John Taverner (Townspeople, Choirboys, Council, John Taverner, White Abbot, Full Chorus, Rose)

Track length16:50

Album only

$5.15

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About

Significant concert activity planned to mark Sir Peter Maxwell Davies 75th birthday in 2009, including concert performances of Taverner in November by BBC SSO (UK).

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music in 2004.

Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle studied together at the Royal Northern College of Music where they founded the contemporary music touring ensemble the Pierrot Players (later renamed The Fires of London).

Maxwell Davies Lives in Sanday in the Orkney Islands which are located off the northern tip of Scotland where the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean meet. Orkney is an archipelago of 70 or so islands; just 21 of them are inhabited.

This is Peter Maxwell Davies’ first release on the NMC label. To mark Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s 75th birthday NMC issue the long-awaited release of his seminal opera, Taverner.

This release is of the landmark 1997 BBC recording featuring an astonishing line up of the cream of British contemporary music interpreters, alongside specialist period instrument ensembles Fretwork and His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, conducted by Oliver Knussen. Although what is now known about the 16th-century English composer John Taverner differs considerably from the plot of this opera, the piece is both a fascinating study of an artist as a man for all seasons and an extraordinary indictment of the horrors inflicted on humanity by religion, or religious zealotry.

The Taverner of the opera abandons music to become a persecutor of the Catholic faith and thus betrays all that is good in himself. In Act 1 we see him being tried for heresy by the White Abbot and pardoned by the Cardinal (Wolsey) because of his music. In Act 2, which is a parody of the first, Taverner is trying the White Abbot, who is burned at the stake. That is the bare outline. A sub-plot is Henry VIII’s wish for a break with Rome in order to divorce Catherine of Aragon and the machinations of a Jester, otherwise Death, who controls Taverner’s fate.

Artists

Fretwork, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta Voices, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts & New London Children’s Choir, Oliver Knussen

Reviews

January 2010

The opera is full… bitterly ironic juxtapositions, such as the 'holy' chanting from monks heard against the cynical Realpolitik of the negotiations between King and the Cardinal. Making the dramatically effective needs a careful balancing of the textures, and here conductor Oliver Knussen proves just as masterly as one would expect. But he's equally good at bringing out the astringent and anguished lyricism of the music, particularly the orchestral interludes in the last Act. ...Stuart Cale as the Cardinal (later the Anglican Archbishop) stands out as particularly fine, relishing the unctuous cynicism of both of these fine prelates. In all, this recording is a wonderful achievement which does justice to a powerful, timely and humane work.

March 2010

Of the stalwart team of solo singers, Martyn Hill, Quentin Hayes and Stuart Kale are particularly successful in their lyrical shaping of lines which can so easily become tortuously shapeless. …conductor Oliver Knussen keeps the goals in view and the climaxes in proportion, with the strings of the BBC SO tirelessly eloquent in the searing final stages.

Offer,Davies, Peter Maxwell: Taverner

2 CDs

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