Built by the Knights Templar in the 12th century, the Temple Church in the Inns of Court is celebrated for one of the most peculiar designs and histories of any building in London. This is appropriate, since in Church of England terms the Temple Church is officially a peculiar – a place of worship that is not part of any diocese. Nowadays, the Temple Church is most widely known for its role in Dan Brown’s bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code.
There were moments in Schubert’s song Verklärung (“Transfiguration”) where the splendour of the declamation and the whispering of spirits from the next world seemed almost too vivid to be true.
“The world recedes, it is no more”, sang Simon Keenlyside, and the sound of his voice doing just that – receding on the hint of an echo – gave the moment of the poet’s passing an added dimension. Some church acoustics swallow voices; the beautiful Temple Church at the gateway to the City of London amplifies and enhances.
Information about the forthcoming refurbishment of the famous Temple Church Organ abvailable as a PDF by clicking below.
Geoffrey Norris reviews Fauré’s Requiem at the Temple Church, EC4
An exquisite, eloquently voiced and profoundly touching performance of Fauré’s Requiem formed the basis of this concert.
The Independent
The cellist Natalie Clein, 26, will be the soloist at the official 60th-birthday concert for Sir John Tavener at Temple Church, Fleet Street. It will be an appropriately atmospheric venue for Tavener, who writes music set within a profound spiritual context.
Church Times
The Temple Church is a fine 13th century building: soundly designed, and vested in the legal grandeur of the Bar. The lawyers of the Inner and Middle Temple raised almost half a million pounds to commission an epic, The Veil of the Temple, from Sir John Tavener, one of our most renowned but musically obscure composers.
BBC Music Magazine
A lot pops into your noddle when you sit in the dark for seven hours. Perhaps that explains why, halfway through John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple, I found myself pondering the numbing predictability of musical life in modern Britain.
The Daily Telegraph
For John Tavener, music isn’t just about music. It’s a way of stilling the mind, so as to focus on the emptiness that the mystics tell us is the essence of the Divine.
Evening Standard
The Round Church of the Temple, its floor littered with effigies of knights ready to kill to defend their religion, dates from the time of the Crusades. Given that the aftershocks of that holy war still reverberate, what better site for John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple, a work embodying the composer’s hope for an end to religious strife?
The Times
Once in a while even the most heartless hack must cast aside professional scepticism and gush like a groupie. Perhaps it’s the heat, or perhaps it’s the fact that i have gone 26 hours on a bacon buttie and two bars of chocolate, but I feel one of those simpering, whimpering raves coming on.
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CDs from the Temple, CD recordings of Choral and Organ music. In addition, a variety of books relating to the Temple Church and its work. 
For centuries to the present day, music has been at the heart of the Temple, an oasis lying between the City of Westminster and the City of London.