Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Sergei Rachmaninoff Vespers (All-Night Vigil) Op.37 Saint Thomas Choir of Men & Boys, Fifth Avenue, New York John Scott conductor RES10169 Dedicated to the memory of Kyra Schutt Hawkins Hickox (1903-2008) Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) Vespers (All-Night Vigil), Op. 37 Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) Vespers (All-Night Vigil), Op. 37 1. Priidite poklonimsya [2:44] 10. Voskresenie Khristovo videvshe [3:24] Come, let us worship The Resurrection of Christ Ory Brown mezzo-soprano 2. Blagoslovi, dushe moya [5:32] 11. Velichit dusha moya Gospoda [7:50] Praise the Lord, O my soul My soul doth magnify the Lord David Vanderwal tenor Saint Thomas Choir of Men & Boys, Fifth Avenue, New York 3. Blazhen muzh [5:03] 12. Slava v vyshnikh Bogu [7:25] Blessed is the man Glory be to God on high John Scott conductor 4. Svete tikhii [3:35] 13. Dnes spaseniye miru byst [1:31] Hail, gladdening light Today is salvation come unto the world 5. Nyne otpushchaeshi [3:28] 14. Voskres iz groba [2:48] Lord, now lettest thy servant depart Thou didst rise from the tomb 6. Bogoroditse Devo, raduisya [2:48] 15. Vzbrannoy voyevode [1:39] Rejoice, O virgin mother of God To Thee, our leader in battle 7. Slava v vyshnikh Bogu [2:45] Glory be to God on high Total playing time [58:16] About Saint Thomas Choir of Men & Boys: 8. Khvalite imya Gospodne [2:04] O praise the name of the Lord ‘The choir is absolutely secure from trebles to basses’ Gramophone 9. Blagosloven esi, gospodi [5:34] Blessed art Thou, O Lord ‘The choir sings wonderfully’ New York Times Sergei Rachmaninoff: persecution under an intolerant Communist leading composers at the turn of the The All-Night Vigil Vespers (All-Night Vigil), Op. 37 regime – which only lifted in the Gorbachev era. century. These included, among others, Arkangelsky, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Gretchaninoff, Our fathers did not wish to receive the grace of evening light in silence; rather, they offered thanks We knew not whether we were in heaven or The music of the Russian Orthodox Church is and Chesnokov. Characteristic of this school as soon as it appeared. on earth, for surely there is no such splendour exclusively vocal; no instruments of any kind of composition is the highly developed vocal or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot St Basil the Great, fourth century describe it to you: only this we know, that are permitted. The oldest chant of the Russian technique exploiting a wide tessitura for all God dwells there among men, and that their tradition is known as znamenny – the word voices, but especially parts for strong low The All-Night Vigil is celebrated on the eve of service surpasses the worship of all other derives from the Slavonic znamia (sign) basses and altos, combined with high tenor the main feasts of the Orthodox Church. places. For we cannot forget that beauty. which is comparable to the Western neume. and (to a lesser extent) soprano lines. Originally it lasted all night from 6pm on Rachmaninoff followed in the tradition of Saturday night through to 9am on Sunday So wrote the envoys of Vladimir I, The melody of znamenny chant is extremely these great composers. He was not raised in morning, and it consists of three separate experiencing for the first time the divine simple. It started as a purely monodic style, the church, nor did he attend regularly. As services: Great Vespers, Matins (at midnight) liturgy at the church of the Hagia Sophia in usually unornamented, moving almost a result, when he began to compose this and the First Hour or Prime (in the morning). Constantinople in 987. It was this visit that led exclusively by step following and speech work, he did not fall back on common By the end of the nineteenth century this directly to the establishment of the Russian intonation. Although this allows maximum formulas or established forms for the had been reduced to a service lasting a mere Orthodox Church the following year. clarity of the sung text, the chant could be various hymns. Rather, he gave careful three hours. decorated with a variety of celebratory consideration to the texts, setting them in Of particular significance for the Orthodox patterns for festive occasions. By the such a way as to point out meanings and The purpose of the vigil is to show a sense of Church are the veneration of Mary as Mother seventeenth century the melodic line, in nuances that other settings generally lack. beauty in the setting sun and give the of God and the adoption of icons as visible the tenor, was harmonized by other voices, The Vespers is written for a four-part choir; congregation a chance to consider the spiritual symbols of God’s taking human form in Christ. but by the mid-nineteenth century there was however, in many parts there are divisi into light of Christ, the new light of the coming a resurgence of interest in the ancient five, six, or eight-part harmony. At one day and the eternal light of the heavenly Schism with Rome in 1054 and the sacking prototypes, including chant. Composers point in the seventh movement, the choir kingdom. Great Vespers begins in silence, of Constantinople in the first Crusade (1204) began to create polyphonic settings of the is divided into eleven parts. The result is a with a cruciform censing of the altar – one of led to an irrevocable separation between chant melodies as well as freely composed work that is unique in its musical content, the most profound moments of Orthodox the two major branches of Christianity. Whilst original versions. Tchaikovsky himself tried formal breadth, sheer beauty and liturgy, representing eternal rest and the Western forms of Christianity continued to his hand at both approaches, employing opulence of choral writing. silence before Creation. There follows a evolve – and splinter into different factions harmonised chant in his All-Night Vigil (1881) sequence of hymns, readings, chants and – the Orthodox tradition has been preserved and a more effusive originality in his Liturgy prayers, providing an analogy of the way in largely intact. It remains the established of St John Chrysostom (1878). The latter which paradise was returned to mankind by religion in Greece; the largest populations work, in fact, shocked some of the more the redeeming sacrifice of Christ. Music of of Orthodox Christians are in Russia and conservative churchmen and served to open course plays a part in this liturgy, as a vehicle Romania, and this despite the church’s the door to a series of later settings by for the sacred texts – the words are always paramount and the austerity of the music consisting of fifty boys and thirty men, directed 4. This is the Evening Hymn of Light (phos 6. The last movement of Vespers is a Hymn reflects this. by Nicolai Danilin. It was extremely well hilaron), which is one of the most ancient to the Mother of God: it occurs in many places received and had to be repeated four times hymns of the Orthodox Church. The text is in Orthodox worship and here the threefold Rachmaninoff’s setting of the All-Night Vigil during the concert season. attributed to Patriach Sophronius of setting is very solemn but full of rejoicing and (Vsenoshchnoye bdeniye, Op. 37) was written Jerusalem. During the singing of this psalm gladness. After this all the lights were dimmed in January and February 1915, during the ‘Even in my dreams I could not have imagined all the lights of the church would be gradually and the doors to the Holy of Holies closed. darkest days of the First World War, when that I would write such a work,’ Rachmaninoff illuminated and the priest and deacon Rachmaninoff was forty-one. During this told the singers at the first performance. entered the Holy of Holies. Here, the Utrenya – Matins period Rachmaninoff was travelling Hearing this extraordinary piece of music, a melody is a Kiev chant using only four notes, throughout Russia with Serge Koussevitsky, vibrant and powerfully emotional manifestation sung by the tenors. 7. The start of Matins is a chorus in praise of giving concerts in aid of the war against of religious experience, it is surely possible God, which precedes the reading of the Six Germany. He had already completed one to understand precisely how he felt. 5. Perhaps the most famous and certainly Psalms expressing man’s sense of loss and choral working this vein (the Liturgy of St John the most extraordinary of the Vigil separation from God. This setting is full of Chrysostom of 1910 following Tchaikovsky’s Vechernya – Vespers movements, this setting of the Song of the sound of bells as the word ‘Slava’ (glory) example of 1878) but the Vigil is more Simeon (Luke 2: 29–32) is the high point of is reiterated. elaborately worked out and more intense in 1. The work begins with the word ‘Amin’ (amen), Vespers. The text is said by the priest its expression. He used authentic znamenny responding to the Opening Acclamation, whenever a child is received into the church. 8. This section, ‘Praise ye the name of the chant in seven movements; two movements chanted by the priest. Then there is a fourfold Rachmaninoff was particularly fond of this Lord’, with words from Psalm 135 (136), is employ Greek chants; and in the remaining call to prayer, in six and then eight parts. movement and wanted it at his funeral, but called Polyeleos. This term means both ‘much movements he constructed what he described this wish was not granted because no place mercy’ and ‘much oil’ – the latter because as a ‘conscious counterfeit of the original’.

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