tavener

Tavener The Lamb

© Nick Redfern www.nickredfern.co.uk Contact: [email protected]

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AS Music

Unit 3: Developing musical

understanding

A guide for students

Vocal music 2010

John Tavener The Lamb

Tavener The Lamb


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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

Tavener The Lamb


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Developing musical understanding works for

2010

Instrumental music

1. Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, movement 1

22. Mozart Piano Sonata in B flat, 1st movement

19. Poulenc Sonata for Horn, Trumpet & Trombone

9. Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8, movement 1

Vocal music

35. Monteverdi Ohimè, se tanto amate

39. Fauré Après un rêve

32. Tavener The Lamb

53. Ray Davies Waterloo Sunset

56. Van Morrison Tupelo Honey

63. Familia Valera Miranda Se quema la chumbambá

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.

For further information or enquiries please contact me at

[email protected]

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Tavener

Born London 1944.

John Tavener has been active as a composer since the 1960’s 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 Górecki have also gained greater

prominence with their minimalist inclined New Simplicity.

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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 Tavener’s evident in this work are:

Stark simplicity

Clear tonal structures

Unambiguous texture

Simple melodic component

Use of repetition

Modal inflection

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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. This is

in direct relation to the

monothematic nature of their

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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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)

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.

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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 Tavener’s 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 Tavener’s 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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Texture

Tavener is meticulous in his simplicity and this is aptly displayed in his stark

use of texture.

Bar 1 Monophonic

Bar 2 Two-part homophony

Bars 3 – 4 Monophonic

Bars 5 – 6 Two-part homophony

Bars7 – 10 Four-part homophony

Bar 11 Two-part octave unison (Soprano + Alto/Tenor + Bass)

Bar 12 Two-part homophony in octave unison (Soprano + Tenor/ Alto +

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

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 naïve musical discourse.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 Verse 1

Bars 7 – 10 Chorale Refrain 1

A1 Bars 11 – 16 Verse 2

Bars 17 – 20 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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Score

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Tavener The Lamb


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