Scored for a cappella choir, John Tavener’s “Hymn for the Dormition of the Mother of God” was composed in 1985 as the second part of a pair of Marian devotions. Its  text is taken from the Feast of the Dormition (or slumber) of the Mother of God, celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox Church on August 15, and known as the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary in the Western Church: “O ye apostles, assembled here from the ends of the Earth, bury my body in Gethsemane; and Thou my Son and God, receive my Spirit.” This text is repeated a total of three times, each within a different musical setting.

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The featured image (detail), uploaded by Sailko, is the “Dormition of the Virgin Mary” (c. 1425) by Fra Angelico. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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