Defining Russian Sacred Music

Defi ning Russian Sacred Music: Tchaikovsky s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Op. 41) and Its Historical Impact Zebulon M. Highben Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky s setting of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Op. 41, 1878) has an important place both in the composer s output and in the history of Russian choral music. In the former case, the Liturgy represents Tchai- kovsky s fi rst foray into the realm of sacred music. His decision to set these texts, despite the Impe- rial Court Chapel s sixty-year monopoly on the publication of church music, highlights his interest in the Russian Orthodox Church and his complex relationship with the concept of religious faith. In the latter case, the performance and eventual publication of the Liturgy strengthened the role of sacred choral music in the ongoing movement to develop a distinctly Russian art and culture. The legal battle between Tchaikovsky s publisher and the Imperial Court Chapel over the rights to publish and perform the Liturgy fi nally ended the monopoly while simultaneously establishing offi cial precedent for concert performance of Russian sacred music. These developments led other Russian composers to contribute to the church s music over the next three Zebulon M. Highben is a graduate assistant decades. Moreover, Tchaikovsky s Liturgy infl u- and DMA student at Michigan State Uni- enced subsequent composers musically. This impact versity. He has taught at the University of Wisconsin River Falls, Luther Seminary, is particularly obvious in the choral/liturgical works and the Lutheran Summer Music Academy. of Gretchaninoff and Rachmaninoff, works that surpassed Tchaikovsky s in fame and came to defi ne the stereotypical sound of Russian choral music. This article will consider Tchaikovsky s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, its relationship to the composer s life and oeuvre, and the state of Russian church music before and after its composition. 8 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 52 Number 4 Defi ning Russian Sacred Music: Tchaikovsky's Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Op. 41) and Its Historical Impact The Evolution of textures of the Divine Liturgy also vary tings featuring “block chords” and usually Russian Church Music widely, from simple chants and antiphonal written for three voice parts. Though these developments can be The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom was responses to more elaborate congregational found it Byzantine, Polish, and German- and is the most commonly used form or choral hymns. Lutheran music, the Italian infl uence of the of the Divine Liturgy that comprises the Until the late seventeenth century, mu- late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- Sunday-morning celebration of communion sically unifi ed settings of the liturgy were turies changed Russian church music most in the Russian Orthodox Church. The Divine either monodic chants or simple two- and profoundly during this period.3 Vladimir Liturgy is a “continuum of prayers, psalms, three-voice polyphonic settings similar Morosan explains: and hymns, which are sung and chanted by to organum. During the late seventeenth various individuals and groups of singers,”1 century, composers such as Vasily Titov The new style of Russian church including priests or bishops, choirs, and the (c.1650–c.1715) began writing polychoral music, fostered by visiting Italian gathered assembly. Similar to its counterpart, settings bearing stylistic hallmarks that later generations would consider characteristically composers and their Russian the Western Mass, it is a multi-layered pas- students, did not emphasize the tiche: The texts come from many sources Russian—modal harmonies and expansive melodies.2 Titov helped develop another setting of complete liturgical services: and serve different functions in the worship the focus was, rather, on sacred service. Thus, the typical musical forms and genre called kant: syllabic, homophonic set- Central Conservatory Cambridge Consort of The Manado State University Imilonji Kantu Choral Society, Yale Alumni Chorus, Yale Choral Artists, of Music Beijing, China Voices, UK Choir, Indonesia South Africa USA USA The Yale Glee Club is pleased will be filled with lectures, workshops, and to announce the 2012 Yale masterclasses for our Conducting Fellows led International Choral Festival, by Yale faculty and distinguished guests. a new event produced in A two-day symposium, Choirs Transforming the collaboration with the Our World, organized in association with the Yale School of Music, the International Federation for Choral Music’s International Festival of Arts Conductors Without Borders network and & Ideas, and the Yale Alumni the American Choral Directors Association’s Chorus. International Conductors Exchange Program, will also take place within the festival From June 19–23, 2012, outstanding choirs from four (June 22–23). continents will come together on the campus of Yale University (New Haven, CT USA) for five days of singing, You can register to attend the entire 5-day festival, the 2-day learning, and exploring the connections that choral music symposium, or apply to participate as a Conducting Fellow. fosters between people. Each evening will feature a formal concert in Yale’s renowned Sprague Hall, and each day To learn more, please visit www.yalegleeclub.org. Yale Glee Club • P.O. Box 201929 • New Haven, CT 06520-1929 10 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 52 Number 4 choral concerti composed on non- compositions of our Bortnyanskys Court Chapel’s monopoly. “Couldn’t you liturgical texts and on individual and Turchaninovs are at once not use some sacred pieces? If so, let me know 10 hymns from the Divine Liturgy and churchly and not musical. on what texts. Would it be worthwhile for 4 other services. you to publish a complete liturgy of my own Laroche’s critique highlights the per- composition? That is one job I’d especially The dominance of this piecemeal Italian ceived gap between the gravitas of the enjoy. Are you able to publish sacred music, concerted style was assured in 1816, when Orthodox liturgy and the comparatively and can you expect any sales?”13 an imperial edict decreed that all music frivolous music dominating Orthodox wor- This letter suggests some developing performed in Russian Orthodox churches ship at the time. Laroche saw this gap as interest in sacred music, although this still must either be written or approved by the problematic from a nationalist perspective might have been nothing more than profes- music director of the Imperial Court Chapel, and a musical one: the prevailing Italian style sional curiosity; Tchaikovsky once described Dmitry Bortnyansky (1751–1825). The edict suppressed a potentially rich source of true Russian church music as “a vast and as yet also forbade the publication of any sacred Russian musical culture. barely explored realm of creativity.”14 In an- music without offi cial approval. A second other 1878 letter to Meck, he described his imperial edict issued in 1846 strengthened affi nity for Russian Orthodoxy in terms of 5 this monopoly. Bortnyansky had studied Tchaikovsky as Church Composer its traditions, its nationalism, and its cultural in Italy with Galuppi (best known for his Tchaikovsky expressed opinions similar character, while simultaneously denying any operas) and was considered a master of adherence to the doctrines of the faith.15 6 to Laroche’s in a letter to his patron, Na- the Italian-style choral concerto. The three dezhda von Meck, in the spring of 1878. “[I] One of those traditions was the prohibition Court Chapel directors who succeeded acknowledge certain virtues in Bortnyansky, of musical instruments in worship; all Russian Bortnyansky had similar training and musical sacred music is unaccompanied. Perhaps 7 Berezovsky and the like, but their music is interests. so little harmonious with the Byzantine style the challenge of writing a complete, unac- Thus, by the 1860s and 1870s, the ear- of architecture and icons, with the entire companied setting of the liturgy appealed lier styles of liturgical composition and the structure of the Orthodox service!”11He to Tchaikovsky’s sense of industry. concept of a musically unifi ed setting of the But, it is also equally possible that some 8 continued with an indignant description of entire Divine Liturgy had all but vanished. the publishing situation: latent religious faith was emerging in the Despite the existence of an offi cially sanc- composer’s life, spawned, in part, by substan- tioned canon of traditional monodic chants, Were you aware that church music tial personal tragedies. His fi rst correspon- a typical performance of the liturgy in a composition comprises a monopoly dence expressing interest in writing church late nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox of the Imperial Court Chapel, which congregation “comprised an arbitrary con- prohibits the printing and singing in catenation of pieces by different composers, churches of everything not included displaying neither a consistent mood or level among those works printed in the of musical complexity, nor a logical relation- publications of the Chapel, which ship of keys.”9 The music critic Herman jealously protects this monopoly and Tropp Music Editions Laroche (1845–1904) commented on this decidedly does not want to allow proudly presents state of affairs: new attempts to write on sacred texts? My publisher, Jurgenson, found It is time to confess that it is a way to get around this strange impossible to attribute serious law, and if I write something for the meaning to the fl at, routine imitations church, he will publish my music of Sarti and Galuppi, which unmask abroad. It is very likely that I shall in their composers so much decide to set the entire Liturgy of St. 12 disrespect for the spirit and demands John Chrysostom to music. of the church, so much ignorance of the means and forms of the music. It is possible, then, that this challenge alone Scholarly editons and recordings It is time for us to confess, in view provided the impetus for Tchaikovsky to of lost masterpieces of eighteenth century liturgical music.

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