Composer: Pavel Chesnokov
Performer: St. John’s Voices, Cambridge University Chamber Choir
Conductor: Graham Walker
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Naxos
Catalogue: 8574496
Release: 2023
Size: 249 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Cherubic Hymn
02. Salvation is Created, Op. 25 No. 5
03. Angel vopiyashe (The Angel Cried Out), Op. 22 No. 18
04. O Tebe raduetsya ‘All of creation rejoices in you’, Op, 15, No. 11
All-night Vigil, Op. 44
05. Blagoslovi, dushe moya, Ghospoda
06. Blazhen muzh
07. Svete tihiy
08. Nine otpushchayeshi
09. Hvalite imia Ghospodne
10. Tropari voskresni “Angelskiy sobor”
11. Ot yunosti moyeya
12. Voskreseniye Hristovo videvshe
13. Slavosloviye velikoye
14. Vzbrannoy voyevode
Pavel Chesnokov studied with Taneyev, Ippolitov-Ivanov and Conus in Moscow and was an admired choral director in the city. He wrote more than 500 choral works, the majority of them sacred. His contribution to music for the Divine Liturgy was immense and he wrote two settings of the All-Night Vigil, the second of which is heard here, rich in chant melodies, and full of grandeur and Romantic lyricism. His smaller-scale works show a refined and perceptive use of texture and sonority, often capturing the essence of chant without direct quotation.
Most recordings of Russian Orthodox liturgical music have been made either by Russian choirs or by American groups that have cultivated their distinctively thick, rumbling sound. This one, from Cambridge University, doesn’t sound like those at all, and listeners may be fascinated to hear the difference. Several things make this work well, one being that music should never be tethered to its point of origin. More specifically, though, there is the fact that composer Pavel Chesnokov, who worked in the first part of the 20th century (he saw the institutions he lived in stripped away and died starving during World War II), offered a somewhat lighter version of the classic sound, admitting Western melodicism to the severe and monumental liturgical language. Sample the first section of Chesnokov’s All-Night Vigil, Op. 44, “Blagoslovi, dushe moya, Ghospoda,” for an idea of the combination. This music rests nicely in the range of the massed St. John’s Voices and Cambridge University Chamber Choir, brought together for a group of 50 and seamlessly fused by director Graham Walker. He deserves a lot of credit for bringing together a complex performance of unfamiliar repertory, although others will have to judge the effectiveness of the Russian pronunciation drills. The program opens with four shorter motets, and the precise yet warm performances here could easily inspire other choirs to add them to their repertories. A fresh approach to some Russian choral music, this album landed on classical best-seller charts in the spring of 2023.