motet notes - Tavener

English composer Sir John Tavener (1944-2013) derived the text for The Lamb (1982) from the first section of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, published in 1789. Tavener’s haunting motet builds a flowing chant around four notes, little more than a repeating nursery rhyme, and yet invested with such powerful tenderness they capture the Christian notion of a small child ruling the universe through love.  Although familiarly associated with the Christmas season, Tavener’s motet resonates with strains from end of our gospel reading from Mark 9:36-37.

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