- John Tavener
Coplas (1970)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Commissioned by the Cheltenham Festival
Tape available on hire
- tp
- SATB (16 voices)
- Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass
- 11 min
- St John of the Cross
- Latin
Programme Note
Coplas is a short anthem for voices and tape. It belongs to a much larger work called 'Last Rites' which I have been thinking about for about a year. It is based on the mystical idea of St. John of the Cross which obsesses me - "the more I live the more I must die." Hence the deliberately static nature of Coplas.
In once sense Coplas is a prolonged decoration of the 'et sepultus est' cadence from the Crucifixus in Bach's Mass in B minor. In another sense I think of it not so much as my music but a way of listening to Bach's music.
In once sense Coplas is a prolonged decoration of the 'et sepultus est' cadence from the Crucifixus in Bach's Mass in B minor. In another sense I think of it not so much as my music but a way of listening to Bach's music.
Media
Coplas
Discography

- LabelEMI
- Catalogue NumberSAPCOR20
- EnsembleLondon Sinfonietta Chorus / London Sinfonietta / Little Missenden Village School Children
- SoloistJune Barton, soprano / Margaret Lensky, alto / John Tavener and David Atherton, conductors
The Whale / Celtic Requiem
- LabelEMI/Apple
- Catalogue Number0863523
- ConductorDavid Atherton
- EnsembleLondon Sinfonietta Chorus / London Sinfonetta
- SoloistJune Barton, sop, Anna Reynolds, mezzo, Margaret Leusky, mezzo, Raimund Herincx, bar