Quotes by John Tavener - Page 1

Every time I have a hit, I buy a Rolls.
John Tavener /
Rolls
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I don't hate pop music. I liked the Beatles, but then, I knew them.
John Tavener /
Pop Music
Liked
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My consultant keeps telling me sudden death could come at any moment.
John Tavener /
Consultant
Sudden
Telling
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I don't think Beethoven expresses religious truth. He expresses a human truth.
John Tavener /
Truth
Beethoven
Expresses
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I've always been aware of mortality because I've always had ill health most of my life.
John Tavener /
Ill
Mortality
Life Health My Life
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I think I've been very lucky all my life because the writing and the faith seem to go together.
John Tavener /
Lucky
All My Life
Seem
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I've got great joy from rediscovering Western music. I love Schumann and Chopin, and those amazing symphonies of Bruckner.
John Tavener /
Amazing
Great Joy
Joy
Western
Love Great Music
Chopin
Love Music Great
Symphonies
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Suffering is a kind of ecstasy in a way. Having pain all the time makes me terribly, terribly grateful for every moment I've got.
John Tavener /
Ecstasy
Grateful
Pain
Suffering
Time Pain Moment
Time Moment Me
Terribly
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I think there will always be a possibility that God doesn't exist because He is infinitude and into that infinitude must come that possibility.
John Tavener /
Possibility
God Will Always
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The path I follow is still an Orthodox path. You have to follow a path; otherwise, it becomes a little bit new-age, a bit of this, a bit of that.
John Tavener /
Orthodox
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'Canticum Sacrum' is wonderfully archaic. What Stravinsky does is extraordinary. It takes you on a journey from Gregorian chant right through to the modernism of Webern - and all in 17 minutes.
John Tavener /
Extraordinary
Modernism
Stravinsky
Archaic
Chant
Wonderfully
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I've written a very long piece of music recently, the 'Veil of the Temple,' which lasts about seven hours. It's really a kind of vigil. It takes place during the night, waiting for the resurrection of Christ.
John Tavener /
Christ
Hours
Lasts
Night
Resurrection
Seven
Waiting
Piece
Recently
Takes
Temple
Veil
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I was having these terrible back pains, and then one day in Switzerland, things got very bad. My wife Maryanna called the hotel doctor, but I don't remember any of this, I was out of it. I had an operation, and I was nearly lost.
John Tavener /
Hotel
One Day
Switzerland
Terrible
Doctor
Nearly
Operation
Pains
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Every woman I have known has actually deepened my spiritual awareness. Even if I have been a selfish man and treated them badly... There were two women, I won't name them, who had a powerful religious effect on me. The ancient idea of a muse is there.
John Tavener /
Ancient
Muse
Selfish
Women Man Me
Badly
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'The Whale' was in the category of so-called serious music, and yet it brings together a wide series of musical styles. It was influenced by people such as The Beatles, the spirit of the times, and I think 'The Whale' certainly had a pop element to it.
John Tavener /
Musical
Series
Together
Wide
Music Together People
Category
Brings
Certainly
Element
Times
Influenced
So-Called
Styles
Whale
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Hildegard von Bingen conveys spiritual ecstasy, if we're talking of Western music. What bothers me about Western music is that it doesn't have an esoteric dimension in the way the music of the East has, whether it be Byzantine chant, the music of the Sufis, or Hindu music.
John Tavener /
East
Esoteric
Spiritual
Talking
Western
Music Me Way
Hindu
Bothers
Music Me Spiritual
Chant
Dimension
Von
Whether
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I used to think there was something dirty about being paid for something which is a sacred thing to do. I can't disconnect the act of writing music from the act of prayer. If anyone tries to stop me working, it feels like someone is trying to stop me from taking communion.
John Tavener /
Communion
Prayer
Sacred
Disconnect
Music Me Trying
Tries
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In his late quartets, Beethoven introduces an element that shouldn't be there, that should be left for meditation, though I love them. I can see that through them came Wagner and Mahler and Schoenberg and Berg. And then came Tracey Emin. And I can see it all as one downward path.
John Tavener /
Late
Mahler
Meditation
Path
Wagner
Beethoven
Downward
Element
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The thing I regret most about my life are those inane photos of me with icons. They used to come down here and dress me up, and I just tolerated it. It's my fault. But I shouldn't have done it. They literally brought down costumes, candles, and icons! It was unbelievable stupidity.
John Tavener /
Costumes
Icons
Regret
Stupidity
Unbelievable
Brought
Candles
Literally
Photos
Tolerated
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We seem to have lost our contact with the primordial: the idea of - call it divine revelation as opposed to something that's learned by the human intellect - something that, if you lay yourself completely open, and you just open your heart completely, something will actually come into it.
John Tavener /
Contact
Divine
Heart
Intellect
Lost
Heart Yourself Your
Actually
Open
Call
Idea
Lay
Learned
Opposed
Primordial
Revelation
Seem
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The music is something outside myself that's also inside myself... Music and a sense of another presence always went hand in hand. Even when I was three, I would improvise music, and my maternal grandfather would act as an audience and used to applaud. I would imitate things like thunder and rain.
John Tavener /
Audience
Grandfather
Rain
Thunder
Inside
Music Myself Always
Applaud
Hand
Imitate
Improvise
Maternal
Outside
Presence
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When I talk of primordial innocence, I hear it in Sufi music with the nay flute. I see it in Coptic icons, in most traditional art, particularly art of the American Indian. I find the texts extraordinarily beautiful and very childlike and very simple. I've been particularly interested in American Indian texts.
John Tavener /
Childlike
Icons
Indian
Innocence
Simple
Sufi
Traditional
Interested
Extraordinarily
Flute
Particularly
Hear
Nay
Primordial
Texts
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