The Lamb (Tavener)

The Lamb is written for unaccompanied SATB choir.^[4] The choral writing is homophonic throughout, with largely syllabic word-setting.^[1][4] A performance direction instructs the singers to be "flexible" and "always guided by the words".^[1] The melody largely consists of quavers at ♩=40.^[11]

The piece combines simple harmony with dissonance.^[4] It is a minimalist piece^[12] based on variations of a single motif:^[4] the music in bars 1-2 is expanded upon and used throughout the rest of the piece, demonstrating Tavener's interest in serialism.^[1] In the first bar, a tonally-ambiguous melody in either G major or E minor is sung by the sopranos. The altos enter in the second bar with an exact inversion (or mirror image)^[13] of the soprano's melody in bar 1.^[14] This inversion results in unconventional harmony:^[15] interlocking melodic lines, chromatic harmony, and bitonality between E-flat major and G major.^[1] The soprano line in bar 3 utilises notes from the alto and soprano parts from the previous two bars. Bar 4 is a retrograde of bar 3, and the final bars of the A section (bars 5-6) also consist of notes from the previous melody.^[14] Bars 7-10 are a B section in E minor^[15] and feature all voices singing homophonically in more conventional aeolian harmony.^[1][14] The texture in the B section is similar to a chorale.^[15]

The chordal verses of The Lamb feature a musical device which Tavener called the "joy-sorrow chord", sung on the word "Lamb".^[8] The chord is used in other pieces by Tavener, including Funeral Ikos and Ikon of Light.^[16] From the bass upwards, it consists of the notes A-C-G-B:^[8]

Since its first performances in 1982, The Lamb has been a popular piece of church music.^[3][7] It is one of Tavener's most commonly-performed pieces,^[4] and is often sung in Christmas services due to the text's focus on Jesus as a baby.^[1] Music presenter and journalist Tom Service wrote that The Lamb is "music that's once heard, never forgotten, its delicate radiance realising a rapt timelessness".^[5] As well as being a popular piece sung throughout the Christmas season,^[17] it has been used in a phone commercial^[13] and in the soundtrack to the film The Great Beauty.^[18] The Lamb has been a set work for the Edexcel A level music examination.^[19]