How do you make religious mysticism credible in concert performance? This is the challenge in performances of John Tavener’s masterpiece The Protecting Veil, a work that simply cannot be understood outside its specific religious context, but which cannot rely on an audience familiar with the ritual and liturgy of the Greek Orthodox faith. One elegant and very satisfactory solution is to situate it in a Greek Orthodox Cathedral surrounded with the lustrous icons, mosaics and acoustics of the very church in which the composer worshipped. This performance in St Sophia’s, Bayswater allows for a dialogue between sound and symbols and setting very much in tune with the composer’s desire ‘to make a lyrical ikon in sound, rather than in wood, and using the music of the cellist to paint rather than a brush.’
This work was first performed at the Proms in 1989, where it made a big impression. It is scored for solo cello and string orchestra, here represented by Guy Johnston and the Britten Sinfonia. There are eight movements reflecting episodes in the life of the Virgin, where the cello sings a continuous song, mostly in the highest part of its register, and the orchestra surrounds it with a halo of sonic layers, sometimes breaking into commentary and emotional amplification of its own. The overall mood is that of a rapturous inwardness interspersed with more animated sections and a long meditative solo to mark the Virgin’s lamentation at the foot of the Cross. It is punctuated by a recurring theme of great yearning and poignancy and several invocations of Greek Orthodox chants.
The performance was being recorded for broadcast and that brought with it theatrical effects, some more effective than others. We began and ended in darkness and the performers were dramatically lit in different tones as the music progressed. While this was helpful, the presence of a gauzy haze from start to finish was frustrating and unnecessary, obscuring the view of the impressive, refulgent iconostasis behind the performers and adding nothing in the way of ‘atmosphere’ that was not already present in the music and ambience.
That said, the performance itself was magnificent, from the first high note on the cello, immediately reinforced by blocks of sound in the strings that made you feel you were in a sonic cathedral of vast dimensions connected to generations of musical time – rather the same sensation that is present in Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis. You are the gradually taken away from daily cares and concerns into a tunnel of your own meditative imaginings. When the piece ended after forty minutes there was a very long silence as though the audience had to return from a long way away.
The ritual origins of this work lie an account of how the Virgin cast a protective veil over a Christian community under siege thereby giving them breathing space to recoup their energies and defeat their opponents. Today we are differently beleaguered but equivalently comforted in a work that transmutes theology into a universal mode of consolation.
The only negative aspect of the evening was the prequel – a selection of Orthodox liturgy performed by the Cathedral choir, with variable intonation and unbalanced voices; but if this was the price to be paid for a performance of the Tavener in this wholly idiomatic ecclesiastical venue, then it was a price worth paying.
St Sophia, Cathedral of Divine Wisdom, Bayswater
Guy Johnston & Britten Sinfonia with Hagia Sophia Choir
Until 29 October 2025
1 hr, no interval
Photo Credit: Andy Staples