RACHMANINOFF Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom • Sigvards K?ava, cond; Kärlis Rütentäls (ten); Gundrars Dzi?ums (bs); Latvian R Ch • ONDINE 1151 (SACD: 59:06 Text and Translation)


Both of Rachmaninoff’s large-scale a cappella works, the All Night Vigil (Vespers) and The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom , had difficult beginnings. The Vespers (1915), suppressed with all religious music by the Bolshevik after the 1917 revolution, was not recorded until 1965 and then only for Western consumption. The earlier St. Chrysostom Liturgy nearly succumbed to the early controversy it created. Written by Rachmaninoff in July 1910 in a burst of nostalgic enthusiasm, it was inspired by memories of his youthful fascination with the sound of St. Petersburg’s Russian Orthodox choirs. Rachmaninoff captured that remembered sound wonderfully. However, the rich harmonic language of the Liturgy and the almost chromatic progressions in the final choruses were far removed from the approved archaic Church modes. The ecclesiastical authorities acknowledged the work’s serene beauty, but though his setting of the fifth-century liturgy was quite conservative for an early 20th-century composition, they banned the use of the work in Orthodox churches because of its “modernist spirit.” Sections of the work were performed in concert for a while, but Rachmaninoff seems to have done little to support the work and, after the Russian revolution, it, like the Vespers, disappeared.


Liturgy had to wait until 1977 for its first recording, a joint venture between EMI and Balkanton, performed by Mikhil Milkov and the Bulgarian Radio Chorus. Now, thanks to ready availability of parts and score, there are more than a dozen recordings of the work from which to choose, including a number of Russian recordings made after the dissolution of the USSR. Many of these are excellent; this latest may be the best in several ways. The Latvian Radio Choir’s singing is sensuously beautiful: the tone Slavic, but more refined and better blended than some of that provenance. The choir boasts rich-toned basses capable of sustaining the low B? in the Credo. The performance is both devotional and thrillingly dynamic. Pacing is subtly varied to underline the text, often creating, as at the beginning of “In Thy Kingdom,” a breath-catching sense of time suspended. The balances achieved by K?ava and his chorus of 25 are ideal; the exquisite rising of the pure-voiced soprano soloist from the chorus in “We Hymn Thee” is but one of many examples. The pitch and diction are exemplary, whether the voices have been tapered to a mere thread of tone or are ringing in the great dome of the Riga Cathedral. The two liturgical soloists are excellent in their truncated roles. The Latvian Radio recording is stunning, creating a palpable sense of the chorus in a large reverberant space with no loss of focus or clarity.


There will be one point of hesitation for some collectors; as with all single-disc releases of this work, there are cuts. Gone are the chanted litanies with their haunting choral refrains (most of “The Great Litany” and the two “Little Litanies” following sections 2 and 3) as well as two whole sections: No. 7, the “Augmented Litany,” and No. 15, “And to Your Spirit,” with its exultant concluding chorus, “Only One is Holy.” The similarly jubilant “Blessed Is He” is cut from No. 17, and, oddly, the “Glory to the Father” of the final section is cut, leaving the often eliminated “Many Years” to conclude the work. More than a third of the 95-minute Liturgy is gone, most of it the deacon’s and priest’s monodic singing. Those who prefer a concert-like presentation may well prefer the cuts. Those who insist on full versions should look to Milkov and his Bulgarian choir (OP but available from ArkivMusic) and the less authentically Slavic, though glorious, Bruffy/Kansas City Chorale on Nimbus. (The latter has the most potent basses of any recording mentioned.) Given its overall distinction, however, I will not part easily with this gorgeously sung and recorded new release.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames


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How Russian does a choir have to be to pull off Rachmaninov’s choral music? Judging by the myriad versions in the catalogue, especially of his Vespers, the answer from the record labels appears to be that it doesn’t matter very much.


That is a shame in many respects, although part of the greatness of this music is its ability to communicate deeply, even when rendered in more Western idioms. However, the Latvian Radio Choir are as close to the source as you could wish for, and this is a reading that ticks all the boxes for authenticity, at least to my Western ears.


One particular problem with the work is its reliance on basses that can get down to, and then sustain, bottom Cs. Fortunately, the Latvian Radio Choir have the bass voices required. I could imagine the basses of a Russian choir dominating more when they hit those low pedals, but the effect here is of a more even balance across the astonishing range of the choir, and overall it is a more musical effect.


The recording is made in very fine SACD audio, although that raises some questions about the role of superior sound in this sort of repertoire. If you visit a cathedral in Russia, and the newly re-built Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow is a great example, you’ll find all manner of arcades and side galleries convoluting the sound. You will often struggle to work out where the choir is, not just because they are obscured from view, but also because the sound comes from all directions, and with an uneven delay that rounds off all the corners.


What role then for superior audio in a choral tradition that values emulsified and imprecise acoustical environments? Well, this recording was made in a Protestant cathedral, the Dome Cathedral in Riga. It is a resonant environment, but the decay is clean. The microphones are set far enough back to give the acoustic an important role in the sound profile, but not so far back that the detail is lost. If I were being pedantic, I might suggest that this acoustic is inauthentic, but given the superior quality of the results, that whole issue fades into irrelevance. For this is a very fine recording indeed. I have only heard the stereo SACD mix, and I have to confess that this is one of the few occasions where I regret not having splashed out on a surround sound setup. But even in stereo, the sound is rich and enveloping.


There are one or two places where the ensemble of the choir is slightly loose. Rachmaninov’s homophonic textures require a very high degree of accuracy, especially at the starts of phrases, and some of those entries are slightly imprecise. On the other hand, there is an impressive variety of texture from the choir. This, perhaps, is a benefit of performance from a non-liturgical choir; many aspects of the recording emulate a liturgical context, but the priority for the performers is the music. And the limited range of textures that the music employs is exploited to the full. An impressive dynamic range too, with some wonderful swells over the course of some of the longer phrases.



Ondine has recently been bought out by Naxos, leading some to worry about the future of SACD on the label. The release of this disc augurs well in that respect, although the recording itself was made long before the takeover, so it may be too early to celebrate. Nevertheless, this is a fine recording, and demonstrates an important and under-appreciated facet of the technology, to create atmosphere and involvement in music where pinpoint precision is less of a concern.


-- Gavin Dixon, MusicWeb International