Customer Reviews

John Tavener: The Last Sleep of the Virgin; The Hidden Treasure

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On October 21, 2003, I was looking this up for a friend and am surprised that no one has written a review of it. It has been around for years. I acquired it when I was first getting into the 'mystic minimalists.' Since then I have listened to it many times. If one can say 'sublimely beautiful' without evoking a sense of rapturous Victorian distraction in one's readers, then there is no more just epithet for this recording. Resonant. Dramatic tension maintained in the long lines. Incorporation of extraordinary effects (thumping the 'cello, hand bells in one piece) to enhance the musical and dramatic ends. I would certainly being my exposure to Part and Tavener by sampling their choral works (perhaps the Stabat Mater by the former, the setting of The Lamb by the latter), but I would certainly enhance and broaden my appreciation by acquiring this gem.

Music as experiential transport by the human spirit... "The Last Sleep of the Virgin"....

Allowing for the existence of consciousness as the highest reality, composer John Taverner has created an audial aperture for transport of the human heart. Aloft flies spirit on wings of harmonic adamance across boundless starfields of beckoning promise...