John Tavener and his Protected Veil

Oh, the very vibrance of color that comes from John Tavener’s complete work “The Protecting Veil.” Tavener wrote this piece as a beautiful orchestration and a demonstration of God’s promise to protect his people. After all, Jesus is the Savior of the world, if we choose to believe it. The piece starts and ends with these colorful cluster chords with added seconds and ninths in them that make you feel like you are ascending up to the highest heaven. The Finale offers a striking D minor chord that is given in essence to the fall of man and the sense of the pleading of the Lord for His people to come back under the veil to be protected from the plight of the fallen world. This is further accentuated by the beauty of a wonderfully crafted violin solo that travels from the ears to the heart—thus signifying the person or people who have indeed fallen.

The whole piece is an ode to Tavener’s Russian Orthodox roots. But it is that music and that unique voice that made audiences stay quiet. It’s quoted by contemporary John Rutter that he didn’t write music to be popular. He wrote the music he needed to write and this piece was the epitome piece of classical piece of his ‘70s output that outlined all his beliefs in his God, outlining that he hoped in Jesus and hoped in heaven as his afterlife. After all the moments, scary, happy, or sad that the piece characterizes in each movement, this piece is sort of an end-result of this rollercoaster.