Ikos: Gorecki, Tavener, Part & Gregorian chant - Choir of King's College Cambridge

Ikos: Gregorian chant & Music by Henryk Gorecki (b.1933), John Tavener b.1944), Arvo Pärt (b.1935)
Choir of King's College Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury
EMI Classics CDC 5 55096 2
Recorded in the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge 1994, CD released 1994

01. Alma Redemptoris mater (Marian Antiphon)
02. Gorecki - Totus tuus
03. Ave Maria (Offertory Antiphon)
04. Gorecki - Amen
05. Regina caeli laetare (Marian Antiphon)
06. Part - Magnificat
07. Allelula, Venite ad me (Alleluia with verse)
08. Part - The Beatitudes
09. Beati mundo corde (Communion Antiphon)
10. Tavener - Magnificat
11. Tavener - Nunc dimittis
12. Requiem aeternam (Introit Antiphon with psalm verse)
13. Tavener - Funeral Ikos
14. Ego sum resurrectio et vita (Funeral Antiphon)
15. In paradisum - Chorus angelorum (Funeral Antiphon)

This is a chance to understand the writing styles of Gorecki, Pärt and Tavener for those not familiar with their works. Very recent religious works are thematically linked on this disc with the church’s most ancient music, Gregorian chant. The contrast between old and new is often hardly noticeable: all three composers’ music is imprinted with the musical roots of their religious cultures. Like turning leaves of a book, each plainsong is followed by a work by one of the three featured composers.

A Pole rejoicing in the revival of the Catholic church since the fall of Communism; an Estonian whose musical language encompasses both the native Russian Orthodox church and western medieval music; an Englishman who joined the Greek Orthodox church: what a fascinating expression of the diversity of Christian tradition in Europe. And how baffling that the choir which is linking all three men’s music on disc should be that bastion of the English choral tradition, King’s College Choir.

All of the works here are easily accessible; many, such as Tavener’s Funeral Ikos and Górecki’s Totus tuus, are quite simple in style.

Review by John Irvine in Cross Rhythms:
It is now a stock-in-trade cliché to group Gorecki, Tavener and Part into a single category: the so-called Holy Minimalists. However it is readily apparent from this disc that in their devotional works they share a similar concern for preserving and promoting Tradition, and achieving a holy and spiritual musical rhetoric in an otherwise secular age. From being voices crying in the wilderness, they have been promoted to the status of spokespersons for a generation seeking spiritual truth and beauty in art and music.

In the meantime, they write for the traditions they understand and cherish: Gorecki's Polish Catholicism, Tavener's adopted Orthodoxy and Part's strange mixture of Slavonic Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Pietism. The use of Gregorian Chant to link the items on this disc helps to weave an almost seamless garment of holy and luminous praise, a single ikon of great beauty composed of many individual brush strokes. Each piece on this disc sacrifices itself for a greater purpose.

These performances set a new standard of interpretation for the works of these composers. In a previous review I wondered if it would be possible to have a disc which could perfectly capture and represent faithfully the similarities between Gorecki, Tavener and Part as well as the subtle differences which distinguish them. This is the closest to perfection that you are likely to find.