This is a luminous, reverent choral-orchestral-vocal work based on the life of the Apostle Paul in a powerful and individual turn-of-the-century modern style. It uses an orchestra of Baroque "original instruments" to add a special sound to its modern approach.

Its composer, John Tavener, is widely regarded as the most powerful British composer of sacred music in the late twentieth century. One of the main aspects of his work flows from his conversion to the Russian Orthodox Church—a musical interest in the Byzantine-derived intonations of the Orthodox tradition, and an archaic sense of mystery that seems to come along with Orthodox music, ritual, and liturgy.

In this case the music is not liturgical. The text is drawn from the Bible by Mother Thekla, who has served as a spiritual guide for Tavener. The instant work shares a title with a famous aria by George Frideric Handel, sung in the oratorio Samson after its Old Testament hero blinded by the Philistines. It is an intensely spatial work of a sort that the composer calls "ikons in sound."

It is a spiritual, rather than dramatic, narrative whose overall sound is like a curtain or tapestry of sonority, a solid, usually static wash of tone color. Against this sound, which gains an unusual quality through the use of the vibratoless playing of an ancient music organization, is pitted the modern saxophone. Tavener calls it a work of "Metánoia," a change of mind so complete that it could be called a change of being.

The work is designed so that space and distance relationships have a symbolic purpose. For instance, Saul/Paul (the saxophone) is in the near field, though off-center. Christ (tam-tam or large gong, Tibetan Temple bowl, tenor, and Baroque oboe) is heard from a location as high and central as possible, as from the top of the dome of a great cathedral.

There is little rhythm in the conventional sense. Instead, the sound events of the music (often originating at different locations in the church) coincide, so the speed and relationships of the different layers of sound have to change to fit the reverberation time of the venue. Conductor Goodwin said that altered the "feeling" of the music between the work's premiere at the immense domed St. Paul's Cathedral in London and its recording made at the Temple Church in London, which is relatively smaller and "tighter" in sound, yielding a performance that was more intimate and painful.

The work is in four sections: "Stavroménos" (Crucifixion) includes 19 timpani and erupts to depict the blow that strikes down Saul as Christ's voice demands to know why Saul is persecuting him. The music settles into radiant sounds before the second part, "Metánoia," where Christ gives the reborn Paul his mission. Part 3, "Agápi" (Divine Love) draws from the famous passage in Corinthians describing the aspects of love. The final section is "Parousía" (Second Coming). It begins with a reminder of the "Stavroménos" music, and with Paul praying to Christ for the second coming.

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