Cellist Steven Isserlis offers one of his most personal projects to date – an album of works by his close friend and frequent collaborator Sir John Tavener (1944 – 2013). The album includes Tavener’s final completed work, Preces and Responses, arranged by Isserlis for eight cellos, and recorded here for the first time. The culmination of six years’ work, the album features four further world premiere recordings, three of which were with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Omer Meir Wellber: The Death of Ivan Ilyich, written in memory of Isserlis’s late wife Pauline; Mahamatar, featuring Sufi singer Abi Sampa, and Popule Meus. The album closes with Isserlis’s arrangement of No Longer Mourn for Me for eight cellos.
Tavener: No Longer Mourn For Me – Steven Isserlis
