The South Iceland Chamber Choir could not have been hoping for more than a few dozen people at their concert of music by Sir John Tavener and Icelandic composers. But the death of Tavener last week changed everything, and long queues were snaking around Southwark Cathedral on Friday evening.
The Icelanders, who sang with impressive precision of tuning and ensemble under their director Hilmar Örn Agnarsson, were giving the world premiere of Tavener’s Three Shakespeare Sonnets, written for them in 2010. It was not his last work — three or four more were to follow — but it was the first after one of his serious illnesses, an expression of thanks to his wife Maryanna for nursing him back to health. Less mystical in conception than most of Tavener’s work, the Sonnets nevertheless follow the characteristic Tavener pattern of frugal inspiration stretched out over a broader canvas than one would have thought possible, or advisable.
Occasionally he could get away with it: in The Lamb the repeated harmonic progression is so exquisite that it bears eight-fold repetition, while in Song for Athene, the climactic phrase is so arresting that all is forgiven. The incantatory spirituality of Iero Oniro and Schuon Hymnen, however, is very much a matter of taste.
Also receiving its world premiere was Islands by Jack White, which had more harmonic and textural originality than the music of the Icelandic composers heard in the first half, even if it was difficult to appreciate the connection between the various texts chosen and the music.
The printed programme offered all texts in the original language only — fine for those with fluent Icelandic.
