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TAVENER
The Lamb
CONTEXT & BACKGROUND
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Tavener’s music became increasingly
popular in the final years of the 20th C
The performance of his song for Athene
that brought the funeral of Princess Diana
to its moving close in 1997 resulted in him
becoming one of the best known British
composers of contemporary art music
The Lamb is a SACRED song
Written for 4 PART CHOIR
Set to a 18th C poem by William Blake
Tavener wrote the work in 1982 for his
nephew’s 3rd birthday and records that ‘it
was composed from 7 notes in the
afternoon’
In the poem Blake appears to speak as a
child (‘I a child’ br17) but in reality the
poem deals with the destiny of the human
spirit
The subject of the setting is Jesus (referred
in the Bible as ‘the lamb of God’) who
‘became a child’ (br16)
Because of this reference to the birth of
Christ, The Lamb was first sung at a carol
service in Winchester Cathedral on 22 Dec
1982 and was broadcast 2 days later as
part of the famous Christmas Eve carol
service from King’s college, Cambridge
It is also sometimes sung as an anthem at
the end of the Anglican service of
Evensong
NAM 32
CD3
Track 10
STRUCTURE
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Br1-10 = 1st verse of poem
Br11-20 = 2nd verse of poem
Although Tavener uses a fuller texture in
the 2nd verse the music is essentially the
same – STROPHIC
The ear tends to notice that the melody of
bars 1-2 returns in bars 7-10 giving the
impression that verse one is a TERNARY
structure (A B A1) in which section B is
formed by bars 3-6
This is then repeated in verse 2 (A = br1112, B = br13-16, A1 = br17-20)
TAVENER
The Lamb
RHYTHM and WORD SETTING
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There is NO TIME SIGNATURE
Although some bars have a distinctly 4/4
feel others are much freer
As Tavener indicates at the start the
rhythm is always guided by the words and
not by a regular pulse imposed on those
words as occurs in NAM 39 for example
The barlines simply mark the ends of the
lines in the poem, being given as reference
points for rehearsals (and for exams!)
The word setting is largely SYLLABIC
although occasionally 2 notes are slurred
together drawing attention to important
words
The combination of outward simplicity and
underlying sophistication reflects the dual
nature of the text – an innocent little lamb
but a lamb who was slain as a sacrifice for
the sins of the world
This explains the bitter sweet dissonances,
particularly the Am9 chord that appears on
the words such, all, Lamb and know in br710 (and all 4 chords with a TENUTO dash in
br17-20)
Tavener refers to it as his ‘joy-sorrow’
chord and it certainly adds pathos to these
passages
NAM 32
CD3
Track 10
MELODY and TEXTURE
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The opening bar is MONOPHONIC and uses
just 4 notes of the G major scale
Giving the question it poses a very childlike
sense of innocence
Tavener constructs the entire work from
this bar
The addition of the altos in br2 creates a 2
part HOMOPHONIC texture – we would
describe this as HOMORHYTHMIC since
both parts have the same rhythm
Alto part is an INVERSION of the soprano
The soprano part is in G major
Its mirror image in the alto is in Eb major
The simultaneous use of a melody and its
own mirror image is used to express the
rhetorical question asked of the lamb –
‘Dost thou know who made thee? – the
only possible answer is shown to be
reflected in the question itself
The monophonic melody in br3 starts with
the soprano pitches of br2 (G major) and
ends with the alto pitches of br2 (Eb
major) – these are the ‘seven notes’
mentioned before
Br4 is a RETROGRADE version of br3 (i.e.
the pitches are used in reverse order)
allowing the music to return to G major
Br5-6 the long melody of br3-4 is
accompanied by a MIRROR INVERSION
(see attached example)
Notice how the manipulation allows
soprano and alto to exchange 3 note cells
of the pitches between the surrounding Gs
In br7-10 the opening melody is presented
4 times in homophonic texture in which all
4 parts are heard for the 1st time
Br 10 is an AUGMENTATION of br9 – and it
gives this last repetition of the bar a sense
of finality for the end of verse 1
TAVENER
The Lamb
HARMONY and TONALITY
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The 4 pitches in br1 all come from the key
G MJAOR and the phrase begins and ends
on G
Bar 2 is BITONAL – the sopranos stay in G
major while the inversion of their melody
in the alto part suggests Eb major
However the resulting clashes are not
highly dissonant and the 2 keys are
reconciled by starting and ending on the
same note G
The phrases in br3-4 and 5-6 are similarly
anchored to G as starting and ending notes
However new light is thrown on the
opening melody when it is given 4 part
harmonization in br7-10 – all notes are
from the AEOLIAN MODE on E (E-F#-G-A-BC-D-E)
Every note of this mode is contained in
these bars
There is no sharpening of the 7th degree in
the dominant chords (the penultimate
chord in each of these bars) and so all the
cadences are MODAL
Tavener has deliberately exploited the
ambiguity created by an idea based on just
4 pitches to suggest MAJOR KEYS,
BITONALITY and MODALITY within the
space of ust 10 bars
Modal writing for unaccompanied 4 part
choir might seem to hark back to a much
older era as might Taveners conventional
approach to his ‘joy-sorrow’ chord which
he treats as a double suspension with the
dissonance prepared and resolved in the
soprano and alto parts each time it occurs
And yet the resulting rich succession of 9th
and 7th chords is not like early music, nor is
his use of CONSECUTIVE 5ths between the
soprano and tenor on the word ‘tender’
(and in 7 similar places)
NAM 32
CD3
Track 10
MELODY and TEXTURE contd….
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Verse 2 – br11-20 is simply a rescoring of
verse 1
Instead of unison sopranos the 1st bar is
sung by the full choir in octaves giving
weight to the instructional tone of the
words (‘Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee’)
Octaves appear for the monophonic
statement of br13-14, while pairs of voices
in octaves (sop/tenor and alto/bass) are
used instead of just sopranos and altos in
br12 and 15-16
The setting of the final 4 lines of the 2nd
verse is exactly the same as the setting of
the final 4 lines of the 1st verse
The devotional style of the music arises in
part from the very restricted range of the
soprano’s melody (an augmented 5th, from
Eb to Bnat as well as from the limited
dynamic range (pp to mp)
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The resulting mix of old and new is typical
of the POSTMODERNISTIC STYLE of this
piece while the repetitive nature of br7-10
and 17-20 suggests the influence of
MINIMALISM
TAVENER
The Lamb
NAM 32
CD3
Track 10