The Lamb - String Orchestra Version

The Lamb, one of composer John Tavener’s most beloved, frequently-performed and often-recorded works, was composed in a single afternoon in 1982 as a gift for the composer’s three-year-old nephew.While the original was an unaccompanied Choral piece that set William Blake’s poem The Lamb, this adaptation is an extremely effective and moving work for String Orchestra. The arrangement may be performed aloneor in accompaniment to a Chorus.

John Tavener was that rare creature, a composer of serious music and serious religious music, who also achieved commercial success. He burst into the popular consciousness with theperformance of his Song for Athene at the funeral of Princess Diana, but had been a highly respected and frequently-performed composer since the premiere of his dramatic cantata The Whale in 1968. The Lamb hasappeared on nearly forty different recordings.