Reviewed by John Irvine

Perhaps no other piece of modern classical music has caused such a stir since its debut (in the 1989 Proms) as this work has. Fans clamoured for the piece to be recorded and since its release it has been number one in the classical music charts. All the more surprising, then, that the piece owes its origin to the Orthodox Church's feast of the Protecting Veil. Since his conversion and entrance into the Orthodox Church in 1977, John Taverner's compositions have had exclusively spiritual themes (his choral work "We Shall See Him As He Is" was premiered at the 1992 Proms) and Taverner conceives his work as Ikons, a form of prayer or an aid to prayer. 'The Protecting Veil' provides an Ikon in music of the mother of God during her life and subsequent intercessory work (as per Orthodox theology!). The piece is profoundly beautiful. The cello (surely the most lyrical member of the string family) plays continuously as the song of the Virgin; the other strings provide a "vast resonating chamber for the cello's ecstatic song". It is a work of simplistic melody, but powerful emotion ranging from the serene to the almost triumphalistic, passing through the melancholy of the "Lament At The Foot Of The Cross" (part 5) on the way. The Protecting Veil' is proving to be one of the most important new compositions around and for several reasons: its melody, it's spirituality, it's accessibility. Taverner once commented that Western music took a wrong turning somewhere losing a spiritual dimension. Through 'The Protecting Veil', Taverner is giving it back.

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