In the leadership of a program, there’s conducting and there’s directing. We tend to use the two terms interchangeably in reference to the person standing up at the front of an ensemble, but in this case, they are two different people.
The opening program for the 2025 Edinburgh Festival is a performance of John Tavener’s epic The Veil of the Temple. This production brings together the Monteverdi Choir, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, National Youth Choir of Scotland, and the NYCOS Chamber Choir, numbering some 250 singers, joined by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Sofi Jeannin. The entire concert will be under the direction of Thomas Guthrie, who first made his acquaintance with the piece as the baritone soloist at its premiere in 2003.
Thomas Guthrie
We spoke with Mr Guthrie the other day about this concert. The original performance at The Temple Church in London took place overnight. As in keeping with many works like this, such as Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, a performance lasts for hours. The Edinburgh performance should take 8 hours. One change will be that it starts at 2:30 in the afternoon, rather than in the evening. The audience will emerge onto twilight summer Edinburgh, rather than daybreak Edinburgh. On August 2, sunset is at 9:17 pm.
The role of the director over the arc of the concert is to coordinate the 8 cycles of the work. There are soloists, choirs, and the orchestra to get in place, just for a start. In the Usher Theatre in Edinburgh, all the seats will be removed from the main floor and replaced with beanbag recliners. Formal seats will still be present in the balconies.
John Tavener: The Veil of the Temple (Concert version) – Cycle II: Let not your heart be troubled (Thomas Guthrie and Andrew Rupp, baritones; English Chamber Orchestra; Stephen Layton, cond.)
The audience will be encouraged to get up and move around, if they want – sitting still as in a regular concert is not required. When movement of the performers takes place through the audience space, the director has to check that the space is available for that movement. Mr Guthrie noted with amusement that in some productions he participated in (either as soloist or conductor), sleepers had to be awakened in some cases. In the original 2003 premiere, the audience was introduced to the idea of movement by the composer himself getting up and changing places. That put everyone else at ease with the idea.
The work builds through its 8-hour journey, with cycle one starting at about 20 minutes, and each succeeding cycle growing in length. Cycle 7 is the longest, with 90 minutes of music. The entire concert culminates at Cycle 8. In an ideal world, you would sit through the entire work, listening to the repetitions and appreciating how familiarity makes you hear the work differently at each iteration. Cycle 7 is the first climax, but it’s Cycle 8 that you want to be prepared for as the work comes to its grand conclusion.
John Tavener: The Veil of the Temple (Concert version) – Cycle VIII: The Light of Christ shines everywhere (Temple Church Choir; The Holst Singers; English Chamber Orchestra; Stephen Layton, cond.)
Mr Guthrie is, first and foremost, a storyteller. Through music, through opera, through theatre, through dance, through film, or through puppetry, the story must come first. Through his career(s) in all those fields, including fiddle-playing with the Alehouse Boys, Mr Guthrie has been praised for his attention to the finer details that tell the bigger story. In The Veil of the Temple, the audience will have a chance to use the first 6 parts of the cycle to prepare for the long 7th cycle and then the final realisation of the 8th cycle. As the director, Mr Guthrie will do everything to help the audience connect the dots to see the fuller picture.
Sung in Aramaic, Church Slavonic, English, Greek and Sanskrit, The Veil of the Temple will provide audiences with a chance to immerse themselves in the repetition of the chant, the swirl of the incense, and the world of John Tavener. Although declared a Tavener masterpiece, the work is rarely performed, given the length of the music (6 hours of music spread over 8 hours of time) and the forces needed. The opening night of the 2025 Edinburgh Festival on 2 August will be a unique opportunity to hear the work as a whole.
For more of the best in classical music, sign up for our E-Newsletter
