Few contemporary composers wear their religious faith on their musical sleeve as prominently as John Tavener. As is also the case with Arvo Pärt—an Estonian contemporary who likewise subscribes to the Russian Orthodox Faith—Tavener's output is dominated by works ranging from reverently secular to quasi-liturgical. Tavener's works often deal with themes of eternity and infinity, ideas that often intersect with thoughts of mourning on the occasion of a deceased loved one. Such is the case with Svyati, or "Holy One"—a work for voices and solo cello whose musical expression, symbolism, and appropriated functionality present parallel and concurrent perspectives on the journey to the afterlife.

Tavener had already begun work on the project when he heard that the father of a close friend had died. At that point the work took on a deeper level of personal significance, eventually bearing a dedication to the friend, Jane Williams, and the eternal memory of her deceased father, John. Svyati comes to us as a sort of self-contained, tautly emotional memorial service for the elder Williams, presented in the musical medium.

The surface texture of the work helps outline the funereal context. As the composer's notes in the score indicate, the solo cello represents the priest or the "Ikon" of Christ, its lines being played in a style reminiscent of Eastern Orthodox chant. Cello passages alternate with choral sections in which the voices, above a constant subterranean drone in the basses, sing lines of the Trisagion from the Orthodox liturgy: "O Holy God, Holy and Strong, Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us." Though this text is part of virtually every Russian Orthodox service, the score makes reference to a particularly poignant employment: sung by the mourners after they kiss the body of the deceased, and as they light candles and follow the casket out of the chapel.

The Trisagion text is repeated three times, giving the work a trinitarian form—one that is punctuated by a unique figure given at the beginning of each of the three sections. This figure consists of four ascending scalar thirds, each of them a different chromatic variant: E-F#-G, E-F-G, E-F-G#, E-F#-G#. The two outer sections give the figure in this order, while the inner section reverses it, lending Svyati the kind of graceful symmetry and simplicity of procedure that is characteristic of Tavener's work. The center section is particularly moving, as Tavener executes an astonishing sonic special effect: after the variation figure from the cello, all the vocal lines (save the drones) begin an arching stepwise line in parallel octaves or unisons; only two out of eight voices finish it, however; the others remain "stuck" on different notes in the line. We may well think of the word "chromatic" here in its visual sense, and picture the composer painting on a wet canvas. The arch of the figure is clear, but its edges are blurry and its colors are fluid. This outlines an emotional point of furthest remove that grates against the omnipresent pedal tones.

The work ends with a microcosm of itself. As the cello outlines three isolated iterations of the initial rising figure, each one ascending an octave, it is answered by an embracing cadence in the voices that sets the title word. Though the score published in 1997 ends with a somber minor third (E-F#-G) in the cello, Steven Isserlis' premiere recording from that year ends with the final G sharped, leaving the listener in a breathtaking Picardy repose.

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