A SPECIAL LENTEN EVENT (3/12/2011)

                       Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation at 302 West 91st Street and West End Avenue

 

Lenten and Easter music have always interested me more than Advent and Christmas music.  I am just always more receptive to this type of music at this time of year for some reason.  And as a pianist, although I have always loved Rachmaninoff's piano music,  I have loved his vocal music even more.  And his Vespers (technically All-Night Vigil, Op.37) never fails to move and inspire.  This was the first opportunity I have had to experience this music personally, and what a better site than a Greek Orthodox Church.  Although not a Russian or Eastern Orthodox Church, there are enough similarities to make the setting most appropriate.  

The evening's performance was presented by The Rachmaninoff Choir, a choral group from Maine that specializes in singing Eastern Orthodox choral music and is directed by Anthony Antolini.  The entirely a cappella performance revealed imaginative changes in tone quality (for example in the "Magnificat" where the choral sound of the women took on a very youthful sound, reflecting the voice of Mary), great attention to balance between soloists and choir, and natural and clear enunciation of the Russian text.

The program notes booklet provides very interesting comments on how Rachmaninoff derived the texts from both the Vespers and Matins portions the All-Night Vigil while never intending for his settings to be an an actual part of the full services. The origins of the chants on which each of the fifteen movements of the work are based are traced and discussed.  This work has special poignancy given the time in Russia's history in which it was composed (1915).  Although performed to great public and critical acclaim in 1915, the war and the subsequent Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 kept it from being performed but only rarely until 1965 when the State Academic Choir of Moscow made what has come to be known as a "definitive recording" of the work. The renewed interest in this work was perhaps a precursor to "glasnost" and the unraveling of the Soviet Union and Communism.

Following the moving and inspirational performance of this work was a wonderful reception where I got to meet and congratulate several members of the choir as well as the priest of the church.  I even called a Greek friend in Raleigh to allow her to share at least vicariously the wonderful reception.