Tavener: Schuon Lieder

Aoife Miskelly soprano

Libby Burgess piano

Maxwell Quartet

Simon Carrington Tibetan temple bowls

John Tavener’s ethereal masterpiece for soprano, piano quintet and Tibetan temple bowls sprang from his discovery of the poems of the Swiss philosopher Frithjof Schuon, a defining moment in the composer’s lifelong quest to express beauty and truth through music. The continuous, ecstatic flow of sound achieves what the Chicago Tribune described as a “Messiaen-like state of transcendental beauty and grace”.

This rare performance of the cycle of mystical love songs and canons marks a double anniversary: 10 years since the composer’s death in 2013, and two decades of the Temple Music Foundation, which was formed to commission Tavener’s seven-hour vigil The Veil of the Temple in 2003.

_{The performance lasts approximately 70 minutes.}