John Tavener: Coplas: SATB: Vocal Score

John Tavener's Coplas composed in 1970 for unaccompanied SATB Choir.'Coplas is a short anthem for voices and tape. It belongs to a much larger work called 'Last Rites' which I have beenthinking about for about a year. It is based on the mystical idea of St. John of the Cross which obsesses me - 'the more I live the more I must die.' Hence the deliberately static nature of Coplas.In once sense Coplas is aprolonged decoration of the 'et sepultus est' cadence from the Crucifixus in Bach's Mass in B minor. In another sense I think of it not so much as my music but a way of listening to Bach's music.' - JohnTavener