Maxwell Davies - Taverner | NMC Recordings NMCD157

Maxwell Davies - Taverner

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Label: NMC Recordings

Cat No: NMCD157

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 2

Genre: Opera

Release Date: 23rd November 2009

Contents

Artists

Martyn Hill
David Wilson-Johnson
Stephen Richardson
Fiona Kimm
Michael Chance
Quentin Hayes
Peter Sidhom
Fretwork
BBC Symphony Orchestra
London Sinfonietta Voices
His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts
New London Children’s Choir

Conductor

Oliver Knussen

Works

Davies, Peter Maxwell

Taverner

Artists

Martyn Hill
David Wilson-Johnson
Stephen Richardson
Fiona Kimm
Michael Chance
Quentin Hayes
Peter Sidhom
Fretwork
BBC Symphony Orchestra
London Sinfonietta Voices
His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts
New London Children’s Choir

Conductor

Oliver Knussen

About

This release is of the landmark 1997 BBC recording of Taverner, featuring an astonishing line up of the cream of British contemporary music interpreters, alongside specialist period instrument ensembles Fretwork and His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, conducted by Oliver Knussen.

Although what is now known about the 16th-century English composer John Taverner differs considerably from the plot of this opera, the piece is both a fascinating study of an artist as a man for all seasons and an extraordinary indictment of the horrors inflicted on humanity by religion, or religious zealotry.

The Taverner of the opera abandons music to become a persecutor of the Catholic faith and thus betrays all that is good in himself. In Act 1 we see him being tried for heresy by the White Abbot and pardoned by the Cardinal (Wolsey) because of his music. In Act 2, which is a parody of the first, Taverner is trying the White Abbot, who is burned at the stake. That is the bare outline. A sub-plot is Henry VIII’s wish for a break with Rome in order to divorce Catherine of Aragon and the machinations of a Jester, otherwise Death, who controls Taverner’s fate.

Cast:
- Martyn Hill (Taverner)
- David Wilson-Johnson (Jester)
- Stephen Richardson (Henry VIII)
- Fiona Kimm (Virgin Mary)
- Michael Chance (Priest/God)
- Quentin Hayes (White Abbot)
- Peter Sidhom (Richard Taverner)

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