Steven Isserlis - Tavener: No Longer Mourn for Me & Other Works for Cello (2020) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

An important release which again demonstrates Steven Isserlis’s deep commitment to the music of John Tavener. The realization of the album is movingly detailed in a booklet note which provides an eloquent counterpoint and commentary to the performances.

This recording could hardly have been a more personal project. Not long after the first performances of The death of Ivan Ilyich and the present version of Mahámátar at an all-Tavener concert at the Manchester International Festival in 2013, I called John to tell him that I’d spoken to Hyperion Records, and that we were keen to record both pieces. I remember being surprised, and touched, by how happy John seemed to be about the idea; after all, his music was scarcely under-performed at that point. But in fact, his perennial insecurity had been exacerbated by terrible health problems following his major heart attack in 2007; it had taken him a long time to get back to composing, and he was anxious about the quality and accessibility of the pieces written immediately after that time. As I hope this recording demonstrates, he needn’t have worried—his last works are among the most powerfully beautiful he ever composed. Furthermore, he was spreading his compositional wings in new and sometimes unexpected directions. Having passed through a long period of writing pieces almost exclusively influenced by the music of the Orthodox Church, he had become far more open to other religions and cultures. Indeed, this album consists of an extraordinary mixture of inspirations: from the Anglican Cathedral tradition through Tolstoy (incorporating elements of Russian Orthodoxy) to Catholicism, Islam, and finally Shakespeare.

The journey from having declared our aim of recording the two pieces performed at the Manchester concert to the actual recording of this album was, however, a long one. After the arrival of the shattering news of John’s death in late 2013 (not long after that phone conversation), we were doubly determined to get it done. But questions remained: Ivan Ilyich and Mahámátar would between them take around 42 minutes, so we’d need a substantial body of other works to fill up the album—and John hadn’t written anything else for cello in his last period. Then, after we solved that problem by deciding to include the arrangements of the Preces and Responses and No longer mourn for me, as well as Popule meus, the challenge was to muster the forces for an album requiring the participation of eight cellos, a bass-baritone, a Sufi singer, a boys’ choir, an orchestra and of course a conductor. So I am very grateful to all those who made this recording finally possible—and who allowed me to fulfil my promise to a man whom I miss to this day.

Preces and Responses
Originally written for a cappella choir and first performed around six months after John’s death by Wells Cathedral Choir conducted by Matthew Owens, the Preces and Responses seem to have been John’s last completed work. Preces—the plural of the Latin for ‘prayer’, ‘prex’—are short petitions that are used at morning and evening prayer in the Anglican Church, the priest’s supplications taken up and amplified by the choir as the Responses. (‘O Lord, open thou our lips’, chants the priest at the opening; ‘And our mouth shall show forth thy praise’, responds the choir.) John was apparently reluctant to write something for a church from which he felt quite distant, especially since he was all too conscious at this point that his time left for composing was extremely limited; but in the end I think he produced music as touching as any he had ever written—particularly in the central section (from 3'15), a deeply tender setting of The Lord’s Prayer.

The personal story: This, I am aware, is a strange tale, and one that some will dismiss as pure invention. Normally I would agree with them—I’m no great believer in dreams (unlike John, who claimed to have dreamed several of his works); but all I can say is that it happened this way, whether or not it was all mere coincidence. Immediately after John’s death, I dreamed about him surprisingly often. One night—and as far as I remember I have not dreamed about him since—he appeared, extremely vividly, and said to me: ‘I want you to arrange my last completed work.’ ‘So not the Dante piece?’, my dream-self asked. (Before he died, John had completed much of a setting of a passage from Inferno which deals with Dante’s farewell to Beatrice; I hope that one day it sees the light of day.) ‘No, not the Dante piece; my last completed piece’, he replied firmly. Unusually for me, when I woke up I remembered the dream perfectly; it had made such an impression that I called Maryanna, John’s widow, and told her about it. ‘What was his last completed work?’, I asked. She laughed. ‘It’s actually called It is finished’, she replied. ‘But it wouldn’t work for cello.’ Oh well, I thought; it was only a dream. But a few days later I happened to be meeting with James Rushton, John’s publisher, and told him the story. He also laughed, but then became thoughtful. ‘No, actually—there was one piece he completed after that. It’s called Preces and Responses—and I think it might just work. I’m going to send it to you.’ He duly did so; I looked at it and thought immediately: ‘Perfect for eight cellos!’ And so, I hope you’ll agree, it is. John’s cello-writing was always extremely vocal, so it felt as if there was no contradiction in making this arrangement, in which the first cello takes the part of the priest before joining the other seven for the fervent Responses.

The death of Ivan Ilyich
John had always loved Tolstoy’s story The death of Ivan Ilyich, and had long had in mind the idea of setting it to music. With the libretto honed and shaped by John’s wife Maryanna, this work was written for the Manchester International Festival in 2013. It premiered there in July, performed by bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu, me, and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Tecwyn Evans, as part of a concert devoted entirely to John’s music. John wrote the following note:

The death of Ivan Ilyich—a monodrama for bass-baritone, solo cello, two trombones, percussion and strings—came to me after a long illness. It was one of the first major works that I composed after that time, as though Tolstoy himself was waking me from a long creative sleep.

The text is taken from one of Tolstoy’s last and greatest novels. The story of a dying man’s excruciating physical pain and his emotional and spiritual crisis is composed architecturally in an intense and terse manner. A glimpse of light occurs towards the end of the piece, after Ivan Ilyich has examined his miserable life. The work ends with an instrumental Apotheosis. JT

Ivan Ilyich is an extraordinary piece in every way. The demands on the vocalist—involving a range extending from almost impossibly low notes to a high falsetto—are remarkable, while the solo cello, shadowing the singer almost throughout the piece, seems to represent Ivan’s subconscious. The work is a powerful statement, undisguisedly autobiographical. John struggled with extreme pain in his last years—he described it (typically) as ‘a sort of ecstasy’—and he had always been obsessed with the idea of death. Perhaps he conceived Ivan Ilyich as a last testament. But there was more …

The personal story: The story behind Ivan is an extremely personal one for me. For some time before John’s heart attack, I’m afraid that I had hardly been speaking to him. We’d had a quarrel (nothing to do with music), and I was feeling highly offended. But then a friend called to tell me that John was very ill—at death’s door, in fact. All offence forgotten (of course), I immediately called his home in Dorset, where his older daughter Theodora answered. Nervously, I asked how John was. ‘He had a bad heart attack; but he’s getting better’, she replied reassuringly. Soon afterwards, I got hold of Maryanna, and arranged to visit John in hospital. This was a bad time in my life too, because at that point my wife Pauline was undergoing chemotherapy. One afternoon, I went with Pauline to Harley Street for the session, and then went around the corner to meet Maryanna and then to see John. Having been soothed by Theodora’s news, I was expecting to find him weak, perhaps, but basically unchanged. The reality was far more shocking. The skeleton I saw lying there, tubes protruding everywhere, a hole in his throat, was a ghastly shadow of the John I knew. I spoke to him; his eyes opened and he saw me. He couldn’t make any sound, but his hand stole towards mine, grabbed it and held it. It was an indelible moment.

I remember thinking, as I left the hospital in a state of numbness, that Pauline at that point looked the picture of health by comparison. But John, thanks to Maryanna’s miraculous care, fought back; alas, Pauline could not, and died in 2010. John had of course identified with her in their concurrent illnesses, and was deeply affected by her death. He kept saying that he wanted to write something in her memory; but he had been quiet on the subject for some time, until one day I received a mysterious message from both Taveners, asking me to meet them in town. We got together for tea, and John explained that, until then, he hadn’t found a subject worthy of Pauline’s memory; but now he had: The death of Ivan Ilyich. And so the work came into being—a heartfelt memorial.

Despite the sad associations of its inception, however, the rehearsals and first performance of Ivan were hugely enjoyable. Jonathan Lemalu and I went to our first rehearsal with John at the school of his younger daughter, Sofia (the Taveners were there for an end-of-term event, and the school lent us their music room). It was a glorious summer day; arriving to the sight of John lying on the grass with his family, I was struck by how much (having been, I think it’s fair to say, a rather grouchy father during his daughters’ early years) he now belonged to them—rather like Ivan Ilyich at the end of the story. Jonathan plied us all with rather too many glasses of Pimm’s before we made our somewhat unsteady way to the music room (John’s progress was particularly shaky, since he had to get there on a wheelchair, rather erratically driven by his seven-year-old son, Orlando). But once the music started, the years rolled back, and it was like returning to the first time John and I had ever worked together, on The protecting veil. John sat at the piano, playing occasionally, making some suggestions, taking others from Jonathan and me, and the piece came to life. He needed quite a bit of reassurance before he could be certain that we really loved the piece, but eventually he believed us. A few days later we reconvened in Manchester, with full forces, and the memorable experience reached its apotheosis.

Mahámátar
John described Mahámátar as a mantra. The cello states and re-states a two-part chant, over which the singer improvises a hymn of praise (so in a way, the version on this recording is also by Abi Sampa). The original was composed to accompany a film about pilgrims, directed by Werner Herzog, to whom Mahámátar is dedicated.

Mahámátar is written for oriental or middle-eastern female voice, distant boys’ voices (in a vast acoustic), tubular bells and muted strings … The music is an invocation to the Great Mother Mahámátar in Sanskrit, and to the Theotóke (God-bearer) in Greek. JT

The first performance of this version was given during the same Manchester International Festival concert at which Ivan Ilyich premiered. The singer was the Pakistani legend Abida Parveen (one of Abi Sampa’s great inspirations), the choir a specially formed ensemble of Manchester female voices from different cultures (MIF Sacred Sounds Women’s Choir), and again the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Tecwyn Evans—and I made an unscheduled appearance …

The personal story: I travelled with my partner Joanna to Manchester a couple of days before the concert, and from there went on to the BBC Centre at Salford (some way from the centre of Manchester) for the first commitment of the trip: a joint interview with John for the BBC. We arrived to find a distinctly gloomy-looking John waiting for us with furrowed brow. ‘It’s a disaster’, he announced without preamble. ‘The singer won’t sing the part I’ve written—she doesn’t read music. And the rehearsal’s in a few minutes.’ I asked him what he was going to do. ‘I don’t know—maybe the melody can be played on a cor anglais, and she can improvise over it’, he replied miserably. Without thinking, I jumped in: ‘Might it work on the cello?’, I asked. He brightened up: ‘Would you try?’ I said I would—but then remembered: ‘Oh no—I can’t. My cello’s in Manchester!’ His face fell. We thought again—maybe I could borrow a cello from a member of the orchestra? But then: ‘Do you have the voice part?’, I asked. ‘No—I think she threw it away.’ After the interview—somewhat nerve-racking in itself, because we had to enter a little Tardis-like box, from which we could hear the BBC interviewer, but she couldn’t hear us; it took some nifty twiddling of the dials from Joanna to sort out the problem just a few seconds before we were on air—we went and explained the idea to the orchestra management, and to Abida Parveen’s manager. The orchestra duly arranged for me to borrow an instrument from a kindly cellist, and Abida’s manager put the idea to her, while we looked on. I was somewhat unnerved by Abida shaking her head firmly throughout the conversation, but was assured that that meant ‘yes’. So, with me reading from the tiny part on the full score—luckily I’d just got a new pair of contact lenses!—and Joanna swiftly turning pages, we tried it out. It was my first experience of its kind—fascinating. I never exchanged a word with Abida—no verbal language in common—but we communicated musically; I felt that we ‘talked’ more each time we played it through. And with the backing of the wonderful inter-faith choir, it became an experience we would never forget.

Poignantly, the post-concert party—at which John and I talked with some lovely ladies from the choir till 1:30am—would be the last time I ever saw him. I’m glad I had no idea it was to be so; it would have made it impossible to say goodbye. At least my final memories of him are happy ones, at an occasion that was a triumph for him. Joanna, who is (among other things) a photographer, took several pictures of him that weekend. John was delighted with them. ‘I look alive!’, he exulted.

Popule meus
Written shortly before John’s heart attack, Popule meus was first performed on 6 February 2010, by cellist Yuri Hooker and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alexander Mickelthwate. It was commissioned by the Magnum Opus project, an organization that brings together several different orchestras to perform the works it commissions.

Popule meus is a meditation on the Judaic and Christian text, ‘O my people, what have I done to you?’, but it is also a Universalist contemplation of the wholesale rejection of God by modern man … In this work the solo cello is the All-Compassionate One, while the timpani represent man in his vain and pointless rejection. Although the solo cello and strings, and the timpani, share the same material (four ideas are gradually revealed, and they revolve four times during the piece), the timpani music is violent and becomes increasingly frenzied and contracted, while the cello and strings remain still and serene. JT

The personal story: One of the orchestras involved in the Magnum Opus commission was the Nashville Symphony, with whom I was going to perform the Elgar concerto in the 2010/11 season. They asked me to add Popule meus to the programme, and I agreed to learn it. By this time, John, having spent well over a year in hospital, was back at home, albeit in extremely fragile health. Some months before the Nashville performances, I happened to be staying in Dorset with my son Gabriel (who had always got on particularly well with Theodora and Sofia), and the Tavener family came to visit. Rather tentatively, I asked John if I could play Popule meus to him. He agreed, and we had our first musical session since his illness. It was such a relief to witness him coming back to artistic life, telling me what he’d had in mind when he wrote the piece, advising me on certain passages.

Despite this joy, I have to admit that I had reservations about the work as I learned it; but it was not until the recording session that Maryanna told me, to my surprise, that John had had similar feelings about the piece! As I worked hard on it before the session, however, Popule meus started to feel more and more convincing; and by the time we came to record it, I was seduced by the primitive power, the violent contrasts and the calm beauty of the music. Again, John need not have worried.

No longer mourn for me
This work is taken from John’s set of Three Shakespeare Sonnets, written for the South Iceland Chamber Choir—great favourites of John’s—and was first performed by them in Iceland in May 2013.

This set of Three Shakespeare Sonnets was one of the first works that I composed after serious illness in 2007. I wanted to pay tribute to my wife, Maryanna, who nursed me back to some degree of health, so I turned to the Shakespeare Sonnets and was delighted to find that they brought forth music once again, after having been silent for so long. JT

The personal story: The UK premiere took place on 15 November 2013, just three days after John’s death. I couldn’t bear to go, but listened on the radio a few days later, and (with perhaps slightly inappropriate practicality) immediately thought of arranging this, the last of the three sonnets, for cellos—as a tribute to both John and Maryanna. As I said to the latter after the first performance of the arrangement, the message of the title of the sonnet at least (the actual words are quite bitter) is clearly meant for her; but perhaps it was intended for all his friends. Indeed, I hope that this recording as a whole will serve not just as a fitting memorial to John, but also as something of a catharsis for all of us whose lives were touched by this extraordinary man.

Tracklist:
01. Preces and Responses (12:19)
02. The death of Ivan Ilyich, 'Smert. He has a strange taste in his mouth. It is death' (27:06)
03. Mahámátar (15:48)
04. Popule meus (12:19)
05. Three Shakespeare Sonnets - Sonnet LXXI: No longer mourn for me (4:28)


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