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Programme Note

The End becomes our 'end' if we too, join in rejecting The Bridegroom - the Light and the Life of the world.

Such is the theme of 'The Bridegroom', at once ecstatic, full of compunction, and radiant. The music should be almost 'unbearable' in its ecstatic light, its endless melodic arch, its intense compunction….

The four female voices should be placed at a far distance from the string quartet. The quartet of strings represents 'The Bridegroom' and the female voices us, full of longing which is a kind of 'Divine' eros. The material is shared, because we represent 'His' saints - Christ, but in 'another form'.

John Tavener