Ultimos Ritos, St Paul's Cathedral London

The vast spaces of St Paul's cathedral make a fine setting for the aspirations of Sir John Tavener, now in his 60th year. Exactly 30 years ago, Ultimos Ritos received its world premiere at the enlightened Holland Festival. Congratulations to the City of London Festival for reviving this seminal work, so rarely performed, in perhaps its most appropriate venue.

The vast spaces of St Paul's cathedral make a fine setting for the aspirations of Sir John Tavener, now in his 60th year. Exactly 30 years ago, Ultimos Ritos received its world premiere at the enlightened Holland Festival. Congratulations to the City of London Festival for reviving this seminal work, so rarely performed, in perhaps its most appropriate venue.

It's easy to forget how talented the young Tavener was. The Beatles famously allowed The Whale to be recorded on their Apple label, a work that simultaneously launched Tavener and the London Sinfonietta. With the benefit of hindsight, it's now easy to recognise his work pre-Arvo Pärt, and see his progression over the last 30 years.

Ultimos Ritos was an extremely brave work for its time, written as it was in the teeth of Modernism. The schools of Darmstadt and Donaueschingen rejected tonality on pain of artistic death, while Sir William Glock and Pierre Boulez reigned supreme at the BBC. Ironically, the BBC Singers took part in the 1974 premiere of Ultimos Ritos.

Tavener's work is cast in five movements, and the composer stipulates that it must be performed in a building with gallery space and a minimum of six seconds' reverberation. If not entirely following Tavener's instructions printed in the score, Richard Hickox here arranged the City of London Sinfonia and members of the BBC Singers to produce the maximum dynamic and dramatic effect.

The first movement, which begins with a shattering fortissimo, has four horns "crying" to each other while jagged strings interject, and recorders, trumpets and drum appear in medieval dance style. In the second movement, bass voices are punctuated by glittering piccolo trumpets, each adding a layer until seven perform urgently "from a very high gallery". The end of this movement is quite extraordinary, a succession of slow, overlapping chords that are repeatedly challenged by deafening timpani, trombones and growling organ.

Splashes of colour from a vocalist, harpsichord, alto flute and organ flicker across sustained vocals in the third movement, while four speakers declaim in different languages over hysterical whispering of the word "Jesus", a passage finally relieved by the tenderest of mezzo soprano lines from Tavener's favourite, Patricia Rozario.

A purely instrumental movement precedes the final choral section, for which Tavener asks that the dynamic should be "as quiet as is humanly possible". Stealthily, the sound of Bach's "Mass in B minor", the Crucifixus, intrudes, quietly overwhelming Tavener's music. The effect is of supreme serenity.

Prefacing this huge work were four a cappella songs of great brevity: "Two Hymns to the Mother of God"; "The Lamb" (a touching setting of William Blake's poem); and the haunting "Song for Athene", re-named for Princess Diana's funeral. This was Tavener at his best.