Composer: Sergey Rachmaninov
Performer: Raul Mikson, Olari Viikholm, Maria Valdmaa, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Conductor: Kaspars Putniņš
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: BIS
Catalogue: BIS-2571
Release: 2022
Size: 962 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Op. 31
01. No. 1, The Great Litany
02. No. 2, Bless the Lord, O My Soul
03. No. 3, Glory to the Father – Only-Begotten Son
04. No. 4, In Thy Kingdom
05. No. 5, Come, Let Us Worship
06. No. 6, O Lord, Save the Pious – Holy God
07. No. 7, The Augmented Litany
08. No. 8, The Cherubic Hymn
09. No. 9, The Litany of Supplication
10. No. 10, The Creed
11. No. 11, The Eucharistic Prayer
12. No. 12, We Hymn Thee
13. No. 13, Hymn to the Mother of God
14. No. 14, The Lord’s Prayer
15. No. 16, Praise the Lord from the Heavens
16. No. 17, Blessed Is He – We Have Seen the True Light
17. No. 18, Let Our Mouths Be Filled
18. No. 19, Blessed Be the Name of the Lord – No. 20, Many Years
The music of the Russian Orthodox Church was an essential part of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s musical background. As a boy he was deeply moved by the sound of St. Petersburg’s cathedral choirs, and phrases reminiscent of liturgical chant permeate his music. His Vespers has long been admired as a summit of Russian liturgical music. It has unfortunately tended to overshadow the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, his earlier large-scale sacred composition. Named after the fourth-century Archbishop of Constantinople and Church Father, the Liturgy consists of a sequence of prayers, psalms and hymns, which are sung or chanted by the different participants in the service.
Rachmaninov did not make use of any existing chants (as he would later do in his Vespers), but chose to reflect their style and spirit with music entirely of his own. The sonorities he creates is rarely achieved by plain four-part writing: instead the voices are frequently divided, solos emerge from the choir, and the range of textures shows great imagination.
The Liturgy is here performed in the warm acoustics of the Niguliste Church in Tallinn by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir – listed among the ten best choirs in the world by the BBC Music Magazine in 2020 – conducted by Kaspars Putniņš.