Tavener The Lamb

AS Music

Unit 3: Developing musical understanding

A guide for students

Vocal music 2010

John Tavener The Lamb

Nick Redfern 1 www.nickredfern.co.uk Contact: education@nickredfern.co.uk

Tavener The Lamb

Developing musical understanding works for 2010 .... 3

Instrumental music ............................................................................. 3 Vocal music .......................................................................................... 3

About this document .................................................. 3 Tavener ...................................................................... 4 Text ............................................................................ 5 Style........................................................................... 5 Context....................................................................... 6
Programme Note ...................................................................... 6

Voices......................................................................... 6 Setting ....................................................................... 7 Metre, tempo & rhythm .............................................. 7 Texture....................................................................... 9 Theme ........................................................................ 9 Pitch organisation .................................................... 11 Tonality .................................................................... 14 Harmony .................................................................. 16 Structure .................................................................. 17 Phrasing ................................................................... 17 Score ........................................................................ 18

Nick Redfern 2 www.nickredfern.co.uk Contact: education@nickredfern.co.uk

Tavener The Lamb

Developing musical understanding works for 2010

Instrumental music
1. Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, movement 1 22. Mozart Piano Sonata in B flat, 1 st movement 19. Poulenc Sonata for Horn, Trumpet & Trombone 9. Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8, movement 1

Vocal music
35. Monteverdi Ohim, se tanto amate 39. Faur Aprs un rve 32. Tavener The Lamb 53. Ray Davies Waterloo Sunset 56. Van Morrison Tupelo Honey 63. Familia Valera Miranda Se quema la chumbamb

About this document

This document is designed to support the study of AS Level Music (edexcel) Unit 3 Developing musical understanding, Vocal Music. The guide is available at www.nickredfern.co.uk and is produced in conjunction with student workbooks, PowerPoint documents and other related material. I have tried not to include detail which is extraneous to the exam, such as dates and biographical detail, analysis of text, etc.

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Tavener The Lamb

Tavener
Born London 1944. John Tavener has been active as a composer since the 1960s but has become a prominent feature of the contemporary music throughout the past two decades. During this period the popularity of reflective, tonal and

spiritually inclined music has increased, spurred by airplay on Classic FM. Composers including Arvo Pert and Henryk Grecki have also gained greater prominence with their minimalist inclined New Simplicity.

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Tavener The Lamb

Text
Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life, and bid thee feed, By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee, Little Lamb, I'll tell thee. He is called by thy name, For He calls Himself a Lamb. He is meek, and He is mild; He became a little child. I a child, and thou a lamb, We are called by His name. Little Lamb, God bless thee! Little Lamb, God bless thee!

Style
The stylistic features of Taveners evident in this work are: Stark simplicity Clear tonal structures Unambiguous texture Simple melodic component Use of repetition

Modal inflection Nick Redfern 5 www.nickredfern.co.uk Contact: education@nickredfern.co.uk

Tavener The Lamb Slow, contemplative tempi Sacred text Simple rhythmic structures

Context
Programme Note
The Lamb was written twenty-two years ago for my then 3-year old nephew, Simon. It was composed from seven notes in an afternoon. Blake's child-like vision perhaps explains The Lamb's great popularity in a world that is starved of this precious and sacred dimension in almost every aspect of life. John Tavener, 2004

Voices
The score specifies Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass although in the Anthology recording the two upper voices are clearly sung by young voices, predominantly choirboys. This lends a purity of tone, the younger voices lacking vibrato and depth of colour.

The ranges Tevener allows the voices are highly restricted

The range of the Soprano and Alto are extraordinarily limited. in direct relation nature to of This is the their

monothematic

music, the sheer limited amount of notes available. The limited range also reflects the simplicity of spirit inherent in the text.

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Tavener The Lamb

The Tenor and Bass have a greater spread of notes but are nonetheless restrained and highly conservative. However, in

order to preserve balance between the parts the upper ranges of the voices are purposely kept well within the

conventional confines for choral writing.

The Bass has the greatest range although the general span of notes is kept within a major ninth (A) below the top B. Tavener skilfully confines the use of the bottom E for the cadence points of the chorale refrains where the rich sonority lends a warm and definitive closing at the central and final bars of the work.

Setting
The setting is almost exclusively syllabic, where each syllable in the text is articulated by a single note.

Metre, tempo & rhythm

The tenet of the work is simplicity. This music is simplicity in its most eloquent and unaffected guise and is intended to be a direct musical transformation of the text although Tavener chooses not to reflect the joyous and affirmative sentiments of the second stanza. With this is mind, Tavener has chosen a pulse the slowness of which is quite rare. He offers this advice:

With extreme tenderness flexible always guided by the words (= c.40) Nick Redfern 7 www.nickredfern.co.uk Contact: education@nickredfern.co.uk

Tavener The Lamb The rhythmic setting of the text appears to be intended to recreate the effect of a text declaimed in a simple manner. The directions imply that even the basic rhythmic character of the setting could be made yet more flexible and naturalistic if the inherent rhythm of the text is to be observed.

There are no indications as to a metre, although it is possible to break the work down into metric terms. The first four bars, for instance, could be written:

I have grouped the quavers according to the natural syllabic stresses of the text. What is revealed by this process is the prosaic rhythm that is revealed, particularly in bars 3 4, where the music appears un-poetic and even childish. So Taveners ploy of using ungrouped quavers, even where syllables are spread over two notes such as lamb and who in bar 1, created a less rigid rhythmic language. The omission of metre is also a clear ploy to encourage a naturalistic and, using Taveners term, flexible interpretation. I have conducted this work and it is remarkably easy to direct and for the singer to follow.

In the choral refrains Tavener employs rhythmic augmentation where the three statements of the refrain material (bars 7 9) are stated in quavers, crotchets and dotted crotchets, the final statements all rhythmic values are doubled to become crotchets, minims and dotted minims (bar 10).

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Tavener The Lamb

Texture
Tavener is meticulous in his simplicity and this is aptly displayed in his stark use of texture.

Bar 1 Bar 2

Monophonic Two-part homophony

Bars 3 4 Monophonic Bars 5 6 Two-part homophony Bars7 10 Four-part homophony Bar 11 Bar 12 Bass) Bar 13-14 Two-part octave unison (Soprano + Alto/Tenor + Bass) Bar 15 -16 Two-part homophony in octave unison (Soprano + Tenor/ Alto + Bass) Bars 17 20 Four-part homophony Two-part octave unison (Soprano + Alto/Tenor + Bass) Two-part homophony in octave unison (Soprano + Tenor/ Alto +

Theme
The work can be considerer to be monothematic, that is there is only one theme which is used exclusively throughout the piece. This may not be immediately apparent but I will explore the thematic transformation later. The basic theme is exposed in bar 1 and immediately establishes the uncomplicated and intentionally nave musical discourse.

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Tavener The Lamb The theme pivots quite deliberately about the tonic, G, and consist of the following intervals

The theme itself can be divided into two parts: the major 3rd and Second and the minor 3rd and 2nd.

The major part ascends then descends

The minor part descends then ascends

This is far from circumstantial as this process defines the pitch organisation of the greater part of The Lamb.

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Tavener The Lamb

Pitch organisation
The Lamb is intentionally and rigorously simple in all aspects of its setting. However, underlying this simplicity there exists a highly schematic method of pitch organisation. The theme is exposed in bar 1 in its prime form by the Sopranos:

In bar 2 the theme is stated in the Sopranos with the Altos singing a perfect inversion of the theme:

The inversion is created by taking the intervallic information of the prime theme and working the counter-melody in contrary motion to the melody. So a step up of a major third is mirrored by a step down by a major third.

I shall refer to these two melodic components as: upper line Prime and lower line Inversion.

The effect on the tonality is startling in its dissonance with the inversion sounding in E flat major causing bitonality, where two keys are sounded simultaneously.

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Tavener The Lamb Bars 3 - 4 reveal further compositional complexity. Firstly bar 4 where the following is stated in the Sopranos:

This material is a hybrid of the prime and inversion

The new material consequently retains the intervallic information, the DNA, of the prime theme:

I will refer to this material as hybrid.

Note the prevalence of thirds, both actual and enharmonic.

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Tavener The Lamb Bar 4 reveals yet more thematic transformation with the notes of the hybrid reversed forming a melodic retrograde.

I will refer to bar 4 as hybrid retrograde.

Bars 5 6 complete the transformative process.

Bar 5 has the Sopranos singing the hybrid with the Altos singing a perfect inversion of the hybrid.

Bar 6 has the Sopranos singing the hybrid retrograde with the Altos singing a perfect inversion of the hybrid retrograde.

Note how the various permutations of the theme maintain the focal point of the tonic, G, at the beginning and end of the material, despite the melodic transformations resulting in a form of chromatic modality.

The theme then returns in the chorale refrain at bars 7 10 in its prime form, three statements as bar 1 and the final statement in rhythmic augmentation, quavers becoming crotchets, crotchets becoming minims.

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Tavener The Lamb

Here the music is modal E minor.

Tonality
The tonality of the work operates in direct correlation with the works structure and pitch organisation. The governing tonalities are G major and modal E minor.

Prime: G major

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Tavener The Lamb Prime + Inversion: Bitonal G and E flat major centred on G

Hybrid/Hybrid Retrograde: Chromatic mode centring on G

Hybrid/Hybrid Retrograde plus inversions: Chromatic mode centring on G

Chorale refrain: modal E minor

The work rests on E minor at the central and final bars of the work.

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Tavener The Lamb

Harmony
The resulting harmony for the superimposition of the prime over the inversion of the theme creates a curiously haunting bitonal statement where the upper voice is in G major and the lower in E flat major.

The augmented fifth between E flat and B and the dissonant diminished third between F sharp and A flat, which sounds a major second, are unusual. These two intervals (E flat/B and F#/A flat) are present in bars 5 6 where the hybrid and hybrid retrogrades are superimposed over their perfect inversions.

The harmony of the chorale refrain is more concordant and acts as a foil against the chromatic dissonance of the verse. There are four statements of this chorale music, the final in rhythmic augmentation. Note the use of suspension and double suspension which have an expressive quality as does the unprepared 7 in chord I7. Double & single suspension

Unprepared 7

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Tavener The Lamb

Structure
The structure is defined by the tonality, texture and text, which are all inextricably linked. It is possible to view the work in terms of a two-part structure I will refer to as Verse and Chorale Refrain. The two part structure is then repeated with some modification:

A
Bars 1 6 Bars 7 10 Verse 1 Chorale Refrain 1

A1
Bars 11 16 Bars 17 20 Verse 2 Chorale refrain 2

Phrasing
The phrasing of this work is unusual as the setting of the text is quite inflexible despite the intended rhythmic language requiring flexibility of pulse. Each bar is a phrase in itself, although it is possible to couple bars 3 4 and 5 6 as a two bar phrase. However, owing to the extreme slowness of the tempo it is difficult not to use the bar lines as breathing points.

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Tavener The Lamb

Score

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Tavener The Lamb

Nick Redfern 19 www.nickredfern.co.uk Contact: education@nickredfern.co.uk

Tavener The Lamb

Nick Redfern 20 www.nickredfern.co.uk Contact: education@nickredfern.co.uk