Continue the journey…
We suggest five works to explore after Rachmaninov’s All-night Vigil
Steinberg composed Passion Week while civil war convulsed Russia
For more choral Rachmaninov, try his earlier Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. Although he eventually dismissed it as unworthy of the Russian Orthodox services of his childhood, it is a fine work whose main sin is to sound obviously a work of the late-19th century in its expressive harmonic style. (Flemish Radio Choir/ Kaspars Putniņš Glossa GCD 922203).
Russian Orthodox music’s turn-of-thecentury renaissance would have been impossible without the precedent of Tchaikovsky’s setting of the St John Chrysostom Liturgy. It is often said to be more of historic than of musical importance – his publisher won the court case against the Imperial Chapel who had insisted on its right to oversee and censor all music performed in the church – but one has only to hear the magnificent choral outburst of ‘Come, Let Us Worship’ to appreciate Rachmaninov’s debt to this earlier work. (USSR Ministry of Culture State Chamber Choir/valery Polyansky CDK Music CDK0085).
An important mentor for Rachmaninov while he composed his major liturgical settings was Alexander Kastalsky
(1856-1926), himself a highly regarded and prolific composer of church music. His settings of the Great Doxology (which form part of the hymns of the Orthodox Vigil), composed 1904-05, offer several pre-echoes of Rachmaninov’s Vigil, and are among his many fine works worth getting to know. (Conspirare/craig Hella Johnson Harmonia Mundi HMU 807526).
A close colleague of Kastalsky’s and like him a pupil of the great Smolensky, Pavel Chesnokov (1877-1944) in his 500 or so religious choruses uses a harmonic restraint similar to Rachmaninov’s Vigil yet distinctly his own. His ‘Gentle Light’ and ‘Cherubic Hymn’ well exemplify his understated, succinct yet effective style. (Tenebrae/nigel Short Signum SIGCD 900).
Finally, a surprising and long-buried work by a teacher of Shostakovich’s, Maximilian Steinberg (1883-1946) – furthermore, composed between 192023, largely while civil war convulsed Russia after the Revolution. Not heard in full until 2014, his Passion Week, like Rachmaninov’s Vigil, makes extensive use of Orthodox chants with masterful use of a richly divided choir. (The Clarion Choir/steven Fox Naxos 8.573665).