Vladimir Morosan

The Sacred Choral Works of Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff's emergence as a composer

coincided with the renaissance of Russian sacred cho­

ral music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen­

turies. After a period of decline in the mid-nineteenth

century, during which serious composers did not com­

pose for the Church-by and large the result of severe

bureaucratic control by Imperial Chapel censors-sa­

cred choral music once again came to the attention of

leading musicians in Russia, among them, Tchaikovsky,

Rimsky-Korsakoff, Balakirev, and the young Rach­

maninoff. What resulted was an enormous outpouring

of compositional activity, which began in the 1880s,

gained strength in the 1890s, and continued until it was

abruptly cut off by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

The composers who took part in this singular flow­

ering of choral composition, in the midst of a musical

culture dominated by instrumental genres, comprise what

has been termed the "New Russian Choral School." 1

Rachmaninoff's contributions to this movement encom­

passed the period temporally: his first sacred choral work,

the sacred concerto "The Theotokos, Ever-Vigilant in

Prayer," was composed and first performed in 1893,

while his last work in the genre, the All-Night Vigil,

was composed and first performed in 1915. And al­

though they are not significant numerically, his contri­

butions are among the crowning achievements of the

epoch: in terms of scope, musical complexity, and ex­

pressive power, they overwhelmingly surpass most works

written by Rachmaninoff's contemporaries.

One of the prime factors that contributed to the

development of the New Russian Choral School was

the creative environment fostered by the Moscow Synodal

Choir, as it evolved in the late 1880s from a mediocre

church choir staffing the Kremlin Dormition Cathedral

into a first-rate choral ensemble that embodied the highest

artistic and professional standards. Intimately connected

with the success of this remarkable Choir and its parent

Moscow Synodal School of Church Singing were a num­

ber of individuals who also played a significant part in

Rachmaninoff's role as a composer of sacred choral

works. Among them were: Tchaikovsky, who as mem­

ber of the Synodal School's Supervisory Council rec­

ommended the appointment of his student Vasily Orlov

(1856-1907) as the Choir's principal conductor and who

may have encouraged the latter to premiere Rach­

maninoff's sacred concerto; Stepan Smolensky (1848-

1909), the Director of the Synodal School from 1886 to

xi vii

1901, who enthusiastically encouraged composers to use

traditional church chants in their compositions and to

whom Rachmaninoff dedicated his largely chant-based

All-Night Vigil; Alexander Kastalsky (1856-1926), the

acclaimed trend-setter among composers associated with

the Moscow Synodal School, who actively encouraged

Rachmaninoff to turn his attention to composing church

music, and whose advice Rachmaninoff sought while

working on his Liturgy2 ; and Nikolai Danilin (1878-

1945), a graduate of the Synodal School, and Rachmani­

noff's fellow student at the Musical School of the Mos­

cow Philharmonic Society, who in 1910 became prinicipal

conductor of the Synodal Choir and led it to its greatest

artistic triumphs, including the premieres, in 1910 and

1915, respectively, of Rachmaninoff's Liturgy and All­

Night Vigil. It is perhaps not coincidental that after 1917,

when the Moscow Synodal School was closed and the

Synodal Choir disbanded, Rachmaninoff wrote no more

sacred choral works.

Like most secular composers of his time, Rach­

maninoff was not very intimately acquainted with the

field of church music, the intricacies of the liturgical

ritual, or the practical aspects of the performance tradi­

tions in Russian Orthodox churches. His familiarity with

the Church's services could probably be likened to that

of any pious layman who attended church regularly.

What was perceived most readily in church was the

"atmosphere"-the beauty and grandeur of the service,

at times joyful and festive, at other times, somber and

penitent; the icons, the candles, and the incense; the

intonations of the clergy; the resplendent singing of the

choirs. Less obvious, even to the educated intellectual,

was the actual meaning of what was sung and read, due

to the fact that the modern Russian language and the

Church Slavonic language used by the Church had parted

ways back in the seventeenth century. Church Slavonic

was full of arcane grammatical constructions and obso­

lete words, which, without special study, would mys­

tify or even mislead a speaker of modern Russian.*l The

difficulty of comprehension was most acute with re­

spect to texts that were proper to particular feast days

and were therefore only sung or read once a year. The

*lAmong the most illustrative examples are such words as"zhiv6t"-meaning "life" in Church Slavonic, but "stomach" in modern Russian; "vtnu"-"always" in Church Slavonic, "I will take out" in Russian; "pr6sti"-"attention!" in Church Slavonic, "forgive me" in Russian (with the accent on the last syllable).

xlviii

unchanging hymns of the All-Night Vigil, which were sung every Saturday evening and evenings before feast

days, and the Divine Liturgy, which was sung every

Sunday and on feast days, were somewhat more familiar.

The liturgical ritual, as set forth in the prayer books,

was replete with strange historical and musical terms,

the meaning of which had changed in some cases and

forgotten altogether in others. Certainly, this was not

the terminology one would have studied at the conser­vatoire. Rachmaninoff's surviving correspondence, both

with his conservatory classmate and friend Mikhail

Slonov3 (himself a minor composer of church music) and with Kastalsky,4 betrays the extent to which the

composer was puzzled by the liturgical terminology he

found in the service books. All the same, Rachmaninoff's

lack of intimacy with the world of church music had a

positive effect: as a sensitive artist, he gave thoughtful

consideration to every text he set, analyzing it and dis­

cerning meanings and nuances that were oftentimes miss­

ing from the traditional, formulaic musical settings sung

in church.5

This subjective, personal approach placed Rach­

maninoff at odds with the age-old aesthetic traditions

of the Orthodox Church, according to which the artist

tended to subordinate individual inventiveness in favor

of pre-existing models and canons. It earned him criti­

cism from the church-music establishment and other

self-appointed critics. But artistically it resulted in works

which were remarkably innovative and fresh, wherein the eloquent poetry and profound message of the origi­

nal hymnography found a forceful and, one might add,

not inappropriate, musical expression.

For this reason also, Rachmaninoff's sacred choral

works defy exact categorization and for a long time

have elicited debates as to whether they are intended

for performance in the context of actual church ser­

vices. On the one hand, the notorious (and ultimately

unsuccessful) attempt in 1878 by the Imperial Chapel's

Director to block the publication of Tchaikovsky's Lit­urgy had resulted in a de Jure distinction between works

approved for use in church services and works not ap­

proved for performance in church but authorized for

publication.6 On the other hand, no composer is known

to have expressly articulated a clear-cut distinction be­

tween works intended for use in church and works best

suited for performance outside the liturgical context;

the matter was left largely to the critics and to the dis­

cretion and taste of each individual church precentor.

By the end of the nineteenth century, public con­

certs of sacred choral music were a regular occurrence.

The programs tended to be an eclectic mix of indi­

vidual "numbers," selected from among the unchanging

(ordinary) hymns of the Divine Liturgy and the All­

Night Vigil, and from variable (proper) hymns associ­ated with particular feast-day services. Thus, a ready

forum was provided for the performance of newly com­

posed choral works on liturgical texts. At the same time,

worship services themselves sometimes took on the ap­

pearance of concerts. Well-known church choirs often

announced in advance the "repertoire" to be performed

at various services. Soloists from the opera were in­

vited to sing solos and trios in church. Some protodeacons

with exceptional voices achieved such celebrity status

that "worshipers" came to church just to hear their "per­

formances."

In this environment, the composers who composed

complete settings of the Divine Liturgy and the All­

Night Vigil before Rachmaninoff-Tchaikovsky, Gret­

chaninoff, Nikolsky, Chesnokov, and Arkhangelsky­

and whose works served as Rachmaninoff's models to

varying degrees, took essentially two different ap­

proaches. Sometimes they included all the liturgical re­

sponses and some of the variable propers needed to

perform a service completely. More often, however, they

dispensed with the liturgical minutiae and set to music

only the main ordinary hymns. Rachmaninoff used the

first approach in his Liturgy and the second in his All­Night Vigil. At the same time, the composer never indi­

cated what his intentions or preferences were for the

performance of the two works.

The Sacred Concerto

"V molf tvab neusipdyushchuyu Bogoroditsu"

Rachmaninoff's first effort in composing music on

a text drawn from the Orthodox liturgy was the sacred

concerto "V molitvab fieusipdyushchuyu Bogordditsu" (The Mother of God, Ever-Vigilant in Prayer), written

in the summer of 1893 and premiered on 12 December

of that same year at a concert by the Moscow Synodal

Choir under the direction of Vasily Orlov. The work

was not published in Rachmaninoff's lifetime, but cir­

culated in manuscript copies.7 In addition to the premiere,

the concerto was featured in a sacred concert by the

Moscow Synodal Choir given on 8 November 1909,

which contrasted two competing directions in Russian

church music-the Western European and the national

Russian; somewhat ironically, Rachmaninoff's work ap­

peared on the "Western European" half of the program,

along with works by Bortniansky. Alexei Lvov, Arkhan­

gelsky, Tchaikovsky, and Nicolai Tcherepnin.8

Little is known concerning the circumstances un­

der which this work was composed. Rachmaninoff had

spent the summer of 1893 living at Lebedin, the coun­

try estate of Ya. N. Li'sikov, in an atmosphere that ap­

peared to be conducive to his creativity, despite peri­

odic bouts with depression; during that summer he also

composed the orchestral fantasy The Crag, opus 7, the

Suite No. l for two pianos, opus 5, and the Six Songs,

opus 8. Just two years earlier, at the Moscow Conser­

vatory, Rachmaninoff had attended classes in the his­

tory of Russian church music taught by Stepan Smo­

lensky, whose enthusiastic rediscovery of the all but

forgotten ancient unison chants, early polyphony, and Baroque-period works was to inspire an entire genera­tion of Russian composers to compose for the church. At that same time, as part of his graduation exercises, Rachmaninoff had composed his first work for unac­companied voices, a brief motet on the text "Deus meus"

(see Appendix).9

Rachmaninoff's youthful choice to write a sacred concerto is not surprising, since the concerto genre af­forded a composer the greatest amount of creative free­dom. The sacred concerto as a genre had arisen in Rus­sia in the late seventeenth-early eighteenth centuries, at which time all types of texts, both liturgical and non­liturgical, were set to music according to the prevailing techniques of the Baroque period-fragmenting the text into numerous phrases and treating the latter in con­trasting sections of imitative polyphony, concerting solo voices, and homophonic tutti passages. This type of concerto, however, had fallen from use in Russian churches and was thoroughly forgotten by the end of the nineteenth century.10 Much more familiar to Rach­maninoff was the type of sacred concerto introduced by Dmitry Bortniansky (1751-1825), whose works remained staples of Russian church repertoire throughout the nine­teenth century. A typical Bortniansky concerto was cast in three (more rarely, four) movements that tended to be contrasting in tempo, texture, tonality, and mood. Usually the texts were drawn freely from the Psalms, but sometimes texts of liturgical propers were used.

The text which Rachmaninoff selected for his con­certo-the Kontakion (a poetic hymn) for the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God11-was normally sung to a formulaic harmonized pattern of the so-called "Common" Chant, in this case, the pattern known as Tone 2.12 Several local variants of melodies for this hymn also exist, although there is no way of knowing whether Rachmaninoff was acquainted with any of them. Only one composer, Artemy Vedel ( c. 1767-1808)13 had set this text as a sacred concerto.

The text itself, a grammatically convoluted Byzan­tine construction, which is actually a single sentence, 14

is not an obvious choice for a multi-movement con­certo. Rachmaninoff's division of the text into sections and movements may seem somewhat arbitrary, but it is identical to the scheme used by Vedel:

I. Moderato

Homophonic opening (mm. 1-14) - "V molftvahneusi"payushchuyu Bogor6ditsu, i v predstateistvah infra neprel6zhnoye upovaniye ... " [(The) in-prayers-ever-vigi­lant Mother of God, who (by virtue of her) interces­sions (is) the world's unceasing hope ... ];

Duet (Altos and Tenors) under Soprano ostinato (mm. 15-33) and Trio (Sopranos, Altos and Tenors) over Bassostinato (mm. 33-54 ), repeat the text "v moiftvah neusi"­payushchuyu Bogor6ditsu, i v predstateistvah infraneprel6zhnoye upovaniye";

Homophony (mm. 55-76) with cadenza-like exten­sion of cadence (mm. 77-84) - "grob i uinershchvieniye ne uderzhasti" [the tomb and death did not hold cap­tive].

II. Poco meno mosso

Fugal exposition (mm. 85-102) - "yakozhe boZhi"vota Mater, k zhi"votti prestavi ... " [for as the Mother of the Life, to life did translate ... ]

III. Allegro

Homophony with imitative episodes (mm. 103-156)- "vo utr6bu Fselfvi"ysfa prisnodevstvennuyu" [(theOne who) dwelt in (her) womb ever-virginal].

The final movement, with its seemingly endless rep­etition of a fragmentary adjectival phrase is particu­larly awkward.

The liturgical text, as rendered by Rachmaninoff, contains some inaccuracies: to the phrase "i v pred­stateistvah" [and in intercessions] he added the word "infra" [the world's], possibly extrapolating from the Troparion of the Feast, which contains the phrase, "vo uspenii mira n.e ostavila yesf..." [in falling asleep Thou didst not forsake the world ... ]; it should be noted, how­ever, that Vedel's aforementioned concerto also con­tains the added word "infra," a circumstance that fur­ther supports the probability that Rachmaninoff knew that work. In the third phrase, he incorrectly rendered the word "uderzhasta" as "uderzhasti."

Apart from its less than optimal transmission of the text, however, Rachmaninoff's music is an entirely dif­ferent story. Already it foreshadows the hand of a mas­ter, not only in terms of treating thematic material, but also in terms of choral sonority. Quite simply, the twenty­year-old composer wrote a piece of choral music that was more complex, imbued with greater emotional power, and pushed the choral instrument to greater extremes of range and dynamic contrast, than anything hitherto com­posed in the realm of Russian church music. There is a freer use of dissonance, which arises and passes quite naturally as the musical ideas unfold; the choral texture expands and contracts seemingly spontaneously; voices are asked to sing triple and quadruple piano and forte;

the sopranos sing high B-flats and altos-high D's. Present already are the inimitable spun-out, undulating melodies (later to become a Rachmaninoff trademark), which at times are wedded to the text and at other times take on an independent life of their own. A stunning example is found in the little quasi-cadenza in mm. 77-81, 15 formed by melismas in the soprano, alto, and tenor. All these stylistic features will be seen in Rachmaninoff's later, more mature sacred choral works.

Following its first performance, Rachmaninoff's sa­cred concerto received a mixed review. The critic Semyon Kruglikov wrote that the work displays "much that is beautiful and talented, but still more a youthful self­confidence and superficiality with respect to the task

xlix

undertaken, and a scant penetration into the religious text selected. "16

The aforementioned inaccuracies in the text would have been sufficient reason for preventing the publica­tion of the concerto, since all compositions using litur­gical texts had to be reviewed and approved by the Office of Sacred Censorship. It may well be that, rather than subject himself to such a review, Rachmaninoff simply left his work unpublished and without an opus number. Years later, however, he remembered his con­certo with some fondness. Writing to Arkady Kerzin in 1906, he refers to the sacred concerto as being "quite decent, but insufficiently spiritual." 17

Despite the criticism garnered by his first effort in the field, Rachmaninoff's interest in church music con­tinued. Sometime after the premiere of the sacred con­certo, Smolensky evidently suggested that he write an­other concerto, but Rachmaninoff replied that he was postponing the "unfinished" work indefinitely.18 A year later Rachmaninoff wrote to Smolensky asking for per­mission to attend a rehearsal for one of the Moscow Synodal Choir's concerts. 19 Fifteen months later, Smolensky invited Rachmaninoff to join the teaching staff of the Moscow Synodal School, but he declined.20

In 1897 Smolensky sent him the text of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom,21 but another thirteen years would pass before Rachmaninoff would undertake setting it to music.

The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Opus 31

Historical Background

In setting out to compose music for the Divine Lit­urgy of St. John Chrysostom, Rachmaninoff was al­ready following well-established precedent. 22 Although a number of other settings of this service had appeared in the intervening years, for Rachmaninoff the most prominent model was probably Tchaikovsky's Liturgy

of St. John Chrysostom (1878). Tchaikovsky's Liturgy had broken the back of the

Imperial Chapel's restrictive censorship, and it certainly broke new ground in terms of the sheer percentage of the liturgical text set to newly composed music, but this did not immediately result in an upsurge of com­plete original settings of the Divine Liturgy. Another thirteen years would pass before Alexander Arkhangelsky (1846-1924) published his Liturgy of St. John Chryso­

stom, opus 15, subtitled "Zaupokoynaya" [Memorial] 23; four years later, in 1894, he published another complete Liturgy, opus 33, subtitled "V dune dreviiih napevov Pravoslavnoy Tserkvi" ["In the spirit of the ancient chants of the Orthodox Church"]. The latter setting was the first to include newly composed music, albeit very simple, for the three antiphons, which Tchaikovsky had not set. In every other respect these settings followed the pattern established by Tchaikovsky. 24

The next composer to contribute to the genre of complete Divine Liturgy settings was Alexandre Gretchaninoff (1864-1956), who in 1898 published his first Liturgy, opus 13.25 This work, written in a har­monic idiom similar to Tchaikovsky's, did not break any new ground. It did include all the litanies and re­sponses and the first and third antiphons, but the latter in extremely abbreviated form; otherwise, in its musi­cal scope and content, the work was clearly patterned after Tchaikovsky's setting.

Gretchaninoff's second Liturgy, opus 29, published in 1902, represents a marked evolution in terms of mu­sical style and serves as an important historical link between the settings of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. This work supersedes its predecessors in a number of ways: it is much more complex and grandiose in its use of choral colors, sonorities and textures; the dynamic pallette is, likewise, greatly expanded. While some of the movements are written in recitative style, including the famous Creed for alto solo with chorus, the choral writing in other movements is much more melodically developed, using chant-like motives that are repeated, imitated, and juxtaposed. Several movements are based on actual chant melodies, while in other movements the melodies are newly constructed of motives derived from chant. These motives, as well as certain harmonic pro­gressions, serve to achieve a thematic interconnectedness among the movements of the entire cycle to a degree heretofore unprecedented. Following the Sunday Com­munion Hymn, which is rendered in a single phrase of recitative, is an elaborate sacred concerto on the text of a hymn to the Mother of God, which is by far the most extensive movement in the work. Gretchaninoff thus became the first Russian composer in modern times to create a work that attempted to fashion the entire Di­vine Liturgy into a single large-scale artistic and musi­cal design. At the same time, the formal dimensions of certain movements, such as the Lord's Prayer, for ex­ample, exceed all previously existing norms for set­tings of this text.

By consciously attempting, in his own words, to "symphonize" the forms of liturgical hymns, Gretcha­ninoff paved the way for elaborate musical settings that went beyond utilitarian liturgical use and carried Rus­sian church music into the realm of the concert stage. Whether Rachmaninoff followed this path deliberately or instinctively ( one suspects, the latter), his Liturgy

and All-Night Vigil proved to be the culminating works in this genre produced before the cataclysmic events of 1917.

The years between Gretchaninoff's Liturgy No. 2

and Rachmaninoff's Liturgy saw the composition of nu­merous individual hymns from the Divine Liturgy by composers such as Alexander Kastalsky, Alexander Nikolsky, Victor Kalinnikov, Nikolai Kompaneisky, Constantine Shvedov, Nicolai Tcherepnin, and the Chesnokov brothers, Pavel and Alexander, as well as

several complete liturgical cycles: the Liturgy, opus 18,

by Semyon Panchenko ( 1902), the Liturgy, opus 37

( 1903), 26 by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, Alexander

Nikolsky's Liturgy [No. l], opus 31 (1909), and Pavel

Chesnokov's composite Liturgy, opus 15, which he, for

the most part, pieced together out of individual works

composed earlier. Although most of these works con­

tained all the elements necessary for liturgical use, they

tended to exhibit expanded formal and expressive di­

mensions that were outside the purely liturgical norm

and enabled the music to stand on its own artistic terms.

The complexity and technical demands of these works

placed them beyond the reach of all but the largest and

best professional choirs in the capitals of Moscow and

St. Petersburg, which, in addition to their church du­

ties, regularly performed in extra-liturgical sacred con­

certs. As rich and varied as the sacred choral literature

was becoming, a new setting of the complete Divine

Liturgy by Rachmaninoff, by now an acclaimed com­

poser, nevertheless, was looked upon, to use Kastalsky's

words, as an "event" in the musical world.17

Composition, Premiere, and Critical Reception

The circumstances surrounding Rachmaninoff's com­

position of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom are well­

known from surviving documents and correspondence.

The work was sketched out in less than three weeks

(3-21 June 1910), while the composer was living at his

country estate of Ivanovka. Wrote Rachmaninoff to his

friend Nikita Morozov:

You ask what I have written .... I am working rather a lot, in fact quite a lot. But I have finished rather little, very little, in fact.

I have completed only the Liturgy (to your great surprise, probably). I have long thought about the Lit­urgy and have long strived towards it. I happened to undertake it somewhat by chance and immediately got carried away. And then finished it very quickly. Not for a long time (since the time of Manna Vanna) have I written something with such pleasure.28

The manuscript bears the inscription: "The end and

glory to God. Ivanovka, 30 July 1910."29 However, judg­

ing from a letter Rachmaninoff wrote to Kastalsky on

22 August 1910, he had just finished making final revi­

sions and was sending the completed version to

Kastalsky, who had just recently been appointed as Di­rector of the Moscow Synodal School of Church Sing­

ing. In that same letter Rachmaninoff asked Kastalsky

to obtain permission for publication of the Liturgy and

inquired about the possibility of a read-through in his

presence around the 20 September 1910. The work was

first performed on 25 November 1910 by the Moscow

Synodal Choir under the direction of Nikolai Danilin.

The published score, however, did not appear until some­time in 1911. 30 Subsequently, portions of the work were performed on 10 March 1911, by the Synodal Choir in

St. Petersburg; then on 25 March 1911, twelve excerpts

were performed by the Chorus of the Mariinsky Opera

in St. Petersburg under Rachmaninoff's own direction;

excerpts were also featured in the programs performed

by the Synodal Choir during their 1911 tour of Poland, Germany, Austria, and Italy. On 24 February 1914,

Rachmaninoff again conducted a performance of the

work by the Mariinsky Opera Chorus. Beyond that there are no other accounts of the work being performed in

the years preceding the Revolution of 1917.

Contemporary musical criticism gave Rachmani­

noff's Liturgy mixed reviews. An anonymous critic,31

wrote after the premiere:

Most of those gathered to hear the performance of S. V. Rachmaninoff's newly composed Liturgy of St.

John Chrysostom were probably expecting a majorevent, a real celebration for lovers of Orthodox churchmusic .... But the Liturgy did not fulfill those expecta-tions ... the composer this time did not master the task he set for himself.. ..

As a work of church music, it struck us as being overly subjective, not at all "churchly" in its affect.... Either the composer has not yet sufficiently acquainted himself with the Liturgy as a form, or his emotions cannot find expression in this form .... 32

Another anonymous reviewer called the Liturgy "a

cold, cerebral exercise ... of a gifted composer, [but]

unwarmed by the fire of inspiration."33

The critic Mikhail Lisitsyn, a priest and a minor com­

poser of church music, was somewhat more generous in his

reviews of the two performances in St. Petersburg. Attribut­

ing some flaws in the setting of the text to insufficient

understanding, he notes parenthetically: "A worldly person

might be excused for this, but a great artist should have

consulted the experts .... Nevertheless, it should be stated that,

by comparison with existing [settings], this is a very well

composed and original Liturgy."34 Lisitsyn found Rachmani­

noff's conducting more to his liking than Danilin's:

Mr. Rachmaninoff did not indulge in such bizarre techniques as Mr. Danilin [an apparent reference to the latter's use of extreme accents to imitate bells35]. In just seven rehearsals he achieved remarkable discipline with the Choir of the Mariinsky Opera, which is not accus­tomed to church music and to singing without orchestral accompaniment.. .. At times the music of the Liturgy

reveals a novice-a dilettante in the field of church music ... , but one must positively acknowledge that Mr. Rachmaninoff has advanced the technique of writing church music and has produced a musically exemplary composition.36

Somewhat surprisingly, the work did not receive any

in-depth reviews or analyses in the musical press of the

time.

Analysis

Rachmaninoff's correspondence with Mikhail Slonov

and Kastalsky in the few months preceding the compo­

sition of the Liturgy offers some insights into his ap-

Ii

lii

proach to the task of setting the Divine Liturgy to mu­

sic. A movement-by-movement analysis demonstrates

that Rachmaninoff's approach was, in fact, much more

thoughtful and profound than his critics gave him credit

for.

From Rachmaninoff's correspondence, it is clear

that he had two main resources in front of him as he

worked on the Liturgy-the "Service Book" (Sluzhebnik)

of the Russian Orthodox Church and Tchaikovsky's Lit­

urgy. 37 Although he was unfamiliar with some of the

terms he found in the service book (e.g., "antiphon"

and "prokeimenon'"), he was curious enough to seek

out their meaning. He puzzled over the apparent con­

tradictions between the prescriptions of the service book

and the music in Tchaikovsky's Liturgy and was not at

all satisfied simply to follow Tchaikovsky's solutions.

It is also apparent that Rachmaninoff was intent on re­

solving his quandaries in his own individual fashion,

being guided not by the requirements of the liturgy, but

first and foremost by strictly musical considerations­

setting one antiphon to music, while omitting another

one; providing musical "interludes" between the peti­

tions of the clergy (although in actual church practice,

one would never move from the Great Litany directly

to a Little Litany without an intervening antiphon); ab­

breviating the given text because of formal difficulties

presented by setting an entire psalm (although in litur­

gical practice, such abbreviation was routinely done for

reasons of time and expediency).

No. 1 - Rachmaninoff's Liturgy begins, properly,

with "Amen"-the choir's response to the opening ex­

clamation of the celebrant. This is followed by the cho­

ral responses "Lord, have mercy" to the thirteen peti­

tions of the Great Litany, intoned by a deacon. Unlike

other versions of these responses, which usually com­

prise two or more variants repeated over and over,

Rachmaninoff's setting is through-composed and dis­

plays a highly original sense of growth and movement:

a gradual expansion of texture from four-part male chorus

to a full eight-part mixed chorus; from pianissimo to

forte. There are subtle rhythmic and melodic variations

in the declamation of the words. Rather than remaining

in the tonic, several responses diverge to the subdomi­

nant and the submediant. The harmony of the eleventh

and twelfth responses anticipates the Augmented Litany

(No. 7).

Despite the relative musical interest achieved by

Rachmaninoff, this number remains essentially a series

of responses-a low point on the scale of musical com­

plexity in the Divine Liturgy-which cannot stand alone

without the intervening petitions. In a liturgical cel­

ebration of the early twentieth century (as today), these.

petitions would have been chanted by a deacon in a

stately, dignified, unhurried fashion, in this case, most

likely, on the B-flat an octave and a step below middle

C. The exact rhythmic and melodic pattern of the reci-

tations were (and are) largely an individual matter.38

Cadential deviations might be made using the pitches A

and G. A rise to C might emphasize an important word.

An organic connection must exist between the rhythmic

flow of the recitation and the choral responses: neither

should be markedly slower or faster than the other. The

absence of fermatas on the final chords of the responses

suggests that, contrary to widespread practice, the chords

should not be held much longer than notated, and that

the deacon should not enter before the choir is finished.39

Conversely, the choir should not respond before the

deacon finishes pronouncing the petition, since this would

obscure the text of the prayer.

No. 2 - At most Sunday and festal Divine Litur­

gies40 the Great Litany is followed by a psalm known

as the "First Antiphon." In the common nineteenth-cen­

tury practice of the Russian Church the text consisted

of select verses from Psalm 102 [103], sung to the melody

of the Russian "Greek" Chant in Tone 1.41 Usually no

more than four or five verses were sung. In churches

where stricter musical traditions prevailed, particularly

in monasteries, perhaps a few more verses would be

performed, sung alternately by two choirs-one stand­

ing to the right of the Royal Doors leading into the

altar, and one to the left. From this practice, most likely,

arose the erroneous notion that the term "antiphon" re­

ferred to "antiphonal," i.e., alternate singing by two

choirs. In fact, the more ancient, literal understanding

of the term as "against a voice," referred to the singing

of a refrain (by the choir or the entire assembly) to

psalm verses chanted by a soloist.

The practice of singing the First Antiphon to the com­

mon chant melody was so widespread, that most composers

who set the Divine Liturgy did not undertake to compose

new versions for it.42 The text was, evidently, not standard­

ized, however. This is reflected in Rachmaninoff's query to

Slonov:

What sort of antiphon is this? Can you tell me its actual words? And, finally, is it needed? In Tchaik­ovsky's service, for example, it is missing altogether. Nevertheless, I am inclined to think it ought to be composed. Please give me these words, for God's sake! (What does the word "antiphon" actually mean?) ...

When Rachmaninoff discovered that Slonov was away from

Moscow and could not answer him right away, he wrote to

Kastalsky (19 June 1910), asking essentially the same ques­

tions:

I looked up the I 02nd Psalm. It is very long. Is it really necessary to set it completely? At the same time to omit it entirely (as did Tchaikovsky) I regard as undesirable. To me it seems essential to insert a number at this particular place, so as to separate the initial "Lord, have mercies" from the ones that follow. Is it possible to use some other, shorter text here? (Incidentally, please tell me what does this word "antiphon" mean'l) .... 43

Kastalsky's reply to Rachmaninoff has not survived.44

But what Rachmaninoff ultimately composed was a highly unconventional setting: instead of the usual block­like harmonic progressions of the common chant, the greater portion of the text here is declaimed by the altos against a static chordal texture weighted towards the male voices. Yuri Keldysh has suggested that Rach­maninoff's approach to this hymn was influenced by the "Creed" from Gretchaninoff's Liturgy No. 2, which also featured declamation of the text by an alto solo­ist.45 Gretchaninoff's setting, however, is clearly markedfor a soloist, while Rachmaninoff's is not. It may also be that Rachmaninoff was led to set apart a single voice by the fact that the psalm text speaks in first person: "Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and all that is within me,

bless His holy name"; once the personal statements are completed, the choral texture fills out and the once­prominent alto voice blends in with the rest.

Rachmaninoff set only the first six verses of the psalm, omitting the second half of verse 3, but includ­ing verse 6, which is rarely sung.46 Significantly, this isthe verse that contains the most poignant and expres­sive moment in the melodic recitation, on the word "obf­dimYm" [the oppressed]. He concludes the hymn with the doxology, "Glory to the Father ... ," which is the proper way to end an antiphon, but was not the standard prac­tice of the time. The thematic material of the doxology, with its prominent bass line, reappears in the doxology at the conclusion of No. 4.

The Little Litany, which follows the First Antiphon, recalls the thematic material of the Great Litany, and also serves to set up the tonality of the following hymn, "Glory ... Only begotten Son." Thematic similarity in litany responses, which occur throughout the Divine Liturgy, is one major device to bind the diverse musical elements of the service into a cohesive whole. Most composers who set the Divine Liturgy before Rach­maninoff, however, either did not set the responses at all or used litanies as vehicles for even greater musical diversity. Notably, the litany responses should probably be omitted in a concert performance.

No. 3 - According to the Service Book, the Little Litany is followed by the Second Antiphon-verses from Psalm 145 [146] in the Russian practice.47 After the psalm verses comes the doxology "Glory to the Fa­ther. .. ," which is followed by the troparion "Only be­gotten Son," an ancient Christian hymn attributed to the Emperor Justinian.48 In late eighteenth- and nine­teenth-century practice, however, the Second Antiphon was suppressed, to the point that most composers did not set it to music at all, with the exception of the doxology, which now began to be viewed as an intro­duction to "Only begotten Son." Whatever the original reasons for this liturgical distortion, Rachmaninoff straightforwardly lays out his motives in his letter to Kastalsky:

Let me add here that I have decided to omit the second antiphon, since the choir has a number, "Y edinorodniy Sine" [Only begotten Son], which seems to me sufficient to serve as an interlude between the [clergy's] exclama­tions.49

Rachmaninoff's setting of this hymn is homopho­nic and richly textured. Long crescendos complement upwardly moving melodic phrases, while diminuendos

accompany the descending phrases. Dissonances and passing chromaticisms are handled with characteristic freedom, but without striving for a specific expressive effect. Only at the end, on the words "spasf nas" [save us], is there a definite evocation of a hushed, prayerful murmur.

The critic Rev. Lisitsyn remarked that in this set­ting the composer betrayed a lack of understanding of the sacred text, e.g., by emphasizing the word "smert" [death] in the phrase "smertiyu smert popravYy" [lit., by death death trampling down], and by repeating cer­tain words unnecessarily. In this particular instance these criticisms seem without merit. Rachmaninoff's choices to emphasize certain words, whether by higher pitch or dynamic accents, appear to be carefully thought out and do not contradict verbal or theological sense. As for textual repetition, Rachmaninoff focused in on three phrases: "bessmerten sYy" [lit., (Who) immortal art], "i PrisnodevY..." [ever-virgin (Mary)], and "spasf nas" [save us]. In all three cases some emphasis on these particu­lar words, relative to their neighbors, can be justified. But whereas an anonymous chant composer in medi­eval Russia would have achieved such emphasis by means of melismatic elaboration, Rachmaninoff does so by means of reiteration, perhaps violating the letter but not the spirit of Orthodox conventions for setting sa­cred texts to music.

The Little Litany which follows is thematically re­lated more to the end of the hymn just concluded than to the previous litanies. It also sets up the tonality of the following hymn. But here, Rachmaninoff offers two alternatives for the "Amen," together with a note that states that the following hymn, written in A minor/C major, may be transposed up by a step. The reasons for such a transposition are not immediately obvious; de­spite the fact that a more challenging tessitura would result, perhaps Rachmaninoff felt that the key of B mi­nor/D major would bring about more vigorous move­ment within the harmonic scheme he had laid out thus far: B-flat major (No. 1), G minor (No. 2), F major/ D minor (No. 3), and returning to D minor in the hymn that follows.

No. 4 - Concerning the Third Antiphon, the "Be­atitudes," Rachmaninoff wrote to Kastalsky:

The third antiphon I shall ... set, according to my prayer book; but is it correct that the "beatitudes" them­selves are preceded by the words, "In Thy kingdom remember us, 0 Lord, when Thou comest, in Thy king­dom," and only then, "Blessed are ... ," etc. ?50

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He was, firstly, expressing his intention to set this text despite the fact that Tchaikovsky (and most other com­posers that preceded and followed the latter) did not set this hymn.51 Secondly, he was inquiring about the exact form of the text, since in some musical settings the phrase "when Thou comest in Thy kingdom" is omit­ted.

Following his initial queries to Kastalsky, Rach­maninoff sent him draft copies of 24 pages of the Lit­

urgy on 6 July 1910, along with additional questions:

(1) Is it possible to make two [spatially separated]choirs sing together, as I have indicated? In practical

terms these examples do not in my view present any difficulties [Rachmaninoff's emphases].

(2) What should they [ the choirs] be called? 1st or 2ndkliros52-or right and left, or is it not necessary to designate this at all.

(3) In the commandments of blessedness [the Beati­tudes] I am afraid of making a mistake with regard to the [word] inflections .... 53

Again, Kastalsky's replies have not survived and can only be inferred from Rachmaninoff's subsequent letter to him, dated 22 August 1910. In this letter Rachmaninoff writes:

I am sending you the Liturgy in revised and complet­ed form. According to my exact count, you gave me 41 comments. Of them I agreed with you in 25 instances. In 16 I did not! Permit me to discuss certain points in more detail: In accordance with your suggestion, I wrote the Antiphons for single choir (as variants). But on paper permit me to realize them as I have always wanted to hear them-i.e., for two choirs ... [Rachmaninoff's em­phases].54

Rachmaninoff's setting of the "commandments of blessedness" is one of the few that comprises the com­plete text. It is only the second one written for the traditional two choirs and is largely through-composed: only four of the beatitudes are set to similar music.55 As with other elements borrowed from "traditional" Or­thodox musical practice, Rachmaninoff's use of two choirs is novel and idiosyncratic: the choirs do not sim­ply sing alternately throughout, but by the fifth beati­tude begin to overlap and supplement one another, ulti­mately blending into a sonorous whole that engulfs the listener.56 At the same time, fully in keeping with tradi­tion, the composer has paid careful attention to the nat­ural rhythm and inflection of the text, switching back and forth between duple and triple rhythmic groupings. As mentioned earlier, the closing doxology employs the­matic material heard earlier in the First Antiphon.

No. 5 - The Antiphons are followed by the En­trance Hymn-a "call to worship" that once accompa­nied the entrance of the people and clergy from the vestibule into the main part of the church. Textually, this hymn consists of a psalm verse that represents the continuation of the psalm of the Third Antiphon in Byz-

antine practice (Psalm 94 [95]), followed by its refrain "Save us, 0 Son of God."57 Rachmaninoff sets this re­frain to the same music as the opening measures of "Only begotten Son," for which he was criticized by Lisitsyn.58 But whether he was aware of the liturgical connection between the Entrance Hymn and Antiphons, or was merely seeking to establish some thematic con­tinuity between movements, Rachmaninoff actually came closer to an authentic liturgical practice than any other composer.59 Moreover, Rachmaninoff's setting, which opens with a great swell of sound from pianissimo to fortissimo within six measures, reflects the great so­lemnity of this moment in the Divine Liturgy more pro­foundly than many other settings of this text-the first appearance, in solemn procession, of the Gospel Book symbolizing Christ's presence, the faithful's reverent response, and thereby, the manifestation of the "King­dom of Heaven on earth."

No. 6 - The Entrance Hymn is typically followed by a series of hymns called "troparia" and "kontakia," which are proper to the day.60 Because there are so many of them, the texts of these hymns are not found in the Service Book under the order of the Divine Lit­urgy, and Rachmaninoff evidently made no effort to locate them. 61 Instead, he proceeded to the choral re­sponse "O Lord, save the pious" and the "thrice-holy" hymn "Svfady B6zhe." Rachmaninoff's setting of this hymn, with its unusual 5/8 meter and driving rhythm, evokes the image of the angelic host unceasingly sing­ing "Holy, holy, holy" before the throne of God (Isaiah 6: 1-3); again, by its originality, it stands out among all other contemporary settings. Structurally, Rachmaninoff followed the prescribed text through the words "i vo veki vek6v. Amin." After that, however, he departs from the prescribed scheme by repeating "Svfatiy Bessmertn'iy" twice instead of once and then by repeating the entire text twice instead of once. Rachmaninoff wrote to Kastal­.sky: "I have rewritten "Svfatfy B6zhe" according to your suggestion."62 But evidently Kastalsky's criticisms did not pertain to the unusual textual repetitions.

In the Divine Liturgy the thrice-holy hymn is fol­lowed by the singing of the prokeimenon.63 Again, prob­ably due to its variable nature, Rachmaninoff elected not to deal with this element of the service. The read­ing is followed by the "Alleluia," which, together with the variable psalm verses, constitutes the "prokeimenon" or prelude to the reading from the Gospel. Normally a triple "Alleluia" is sung at least three times; Rachma­ninoff provides two variants, setting, as well, the sub­sequent choral responses: "And with your spirit" and "Glory to Thee, 0 Lord ... ," the latter of which is sung before and after the Gospel reading.

Although there is no liturgical rationale for musi­cally linking the "Thrice-holy" with the "Alleluia" and the subsequent responses, as Rachmaninoff does,64 the response after the Gospel marks the conclusion of a

distinct portion of the service-the proclamation of Scrip­ture. 65 In Rachmaninoff's setting this is marked by a clear shift of tonality, from A major/D major to G mi­nor between numbers 6 and 7.

No. 7 - Rachmaninoff's setting of the so-called Aug­mented Litany is highly unconventional, in that the two words "Gh6spodi" [Lord] and "pomfluy" [have mercy] are assigned to two different groups of voices, with the final syllable "-di" being sustained, according to the composer's note, even during the subsequent petition of the deacon. The originality of the resulting interplay was noted positively by the reviewer Lisitsyn, but evidently caused some concern on Kastalsky's part. Rachmaninoff wrote to him:

Your comment that the single "Lord, have mercies"

before the thrice-fold ones should be in the same char­

acter as the latter I have taken into consideration. As for

the "thrice-fold" ones-I stand fast for them (in partic­

ular, that the long notes be held by the basses [and not the

tenors], along with the altos). With one point only I am

prepared to agree: in a poor performance, it will be a

caricature. 66

According to Lisitsyn, Danilin "strongly accented" precisely this section of the work, striving to achieve "the effect of striking bells."67

It is not clear whether any of the early concert per­formances included the diaconal petitions. Whatever the case, in this section of the Liturgy the presence of the deacon's part not only seems desirable, but is essential in order to achieve the effect Rachmaninoff was pursu­ing.

Faithfully following the Service Book, Rachmaninoff then proceeded to compose responses for all the subse­quent litanies: for the departed, for the catechumens, and two litanies of the faithful, recalling thematic ma­terial used earlier in the Great and Little Litanies. In a concert performance these litanies may well be omit­ted.

No. 8 - The Cherubic Hymn has always been a focus of attention for composers of Orthodox liturgical music. Not only does it initiate the most solemn por­tion of the Divine Liturgy, the Eucharist, but it also covers several protracted liturgical actions performed by the celebrants: the censing, the recitation of certain prayers, the forming of the procession for the Great Entrance, and finally, the Great Entrance itself, during which the Communion Gifts are ceremoniously brought out the side door of the altar and in through the Royal Doors, before being placed upon the altar table. During the Entrance, the celebrants intone a series of commem­orative petitions, followed by an "Amen"-an effective interruption of the Cherubic Hymn-after which the hymn is concluded. The singing of the first three verses, therefore, was supposed to occupy several minutes, which enabled a composer to create a complex musical score to be performed in a slow tempo; the final portion of

the hymn, following the Great Entrance, could occupy less time.

Since the late eighteenth century the common for­mal scheme of the Cherubic Hymn consisted of three identical or near-identical strophes in a slow tempo (Bortniansky, in particular, tended to employ an A, A, A' form), followed by an upbeat Allegro after the Entrance. Rachmaninoff, in his characteristically original fash­ion, pays some homage to this traditional plan, but with significant deviations: he uses an A, B, A' form in the first portion but without any clear breaks between the strophes, and a final portion in a different tempo and meter, but with obvious thematic references to the ma­terial in the first part of the hymn. Also unusual are the protracted rallentando and diminuendo on the conclud­ing "Alleluias," thus ending the hymn in the same ethe­real, other-worldly mood with which it began.

No. 9 - Following the Cherubic Hymn is another litany, which continues in the tonality of the Cherubic Hymn. Then comes an abrupt modulatory shift on the response "Ottsa i Sina" [Father, Son] following the deacon's exclamation "Let us love one another. .. ," which prepares for a return to B-flat in the Creed. In a concert performance the litany may be omitted, but "Ottsa i SYna," with the exclamations before and after it, seems crucial to establish both a musical and liturgical context.

No. 10 - The Nicene Creed in the Orthodox tradi­tion has historically been recited (among the Greeks and in the Middle East) or sung to a simple, formulaic melody by the entire assembly of worshippers. The melo­dies were evidently passed along in the oral tradition, since they scarcely appear in chant books. Early com­posed settings, such as the one by Maksim Berezovsky (1745-1777), tended to be choral recitatives set to re­peating chordal patterns; similar compositions were pro­duced by Lomakin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Lvovsky, and other composers in the late nineteenth century. Tchai­kovsky in his Liturgy broke with this tradition in two respects: (1) by writing a through-composed setting that contains practically no repeating thematic material, and (2) by thrusting the text of the Creed into a strict meter,first 4/4 and then 3/4. Rachmaninoff's setting of theCreed combines Tchaikovsky's approach with elementsof the formulaic-melody tradition. Like Tchaikovsky,he casts the text in regular 4/4 time with occasionalmeter changes. But rather than simply writing a some­what amorphous series of chord progressions, like Tchai­kovsky, he uses a distinctive four-note melodic theme,which serves as an important form-defining element. Inthe middle of the Creed is a dramatic contrasting sec­tion in which a semi-chorus repeatedly declaims thewords "Who for us men and for our salvation ... ," as therest of the chorus recounts Christ's descent from Heaven,incarnation, suffering, crucifixion, burial, and resurrec­tion. Unlike the "et incarnatus est" sections in Western

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European settings of the Creed, which focus on the event of the Incarnation, Rachmaninoff seems to be making a heartfelt, moving statement about the sacrificial and salvific work of Christ "for us." Also present in Rach­maninoff's setting is an original, if somewhat naive ex­ample of word painting: several repetitions of the words "iie btidet kontsa" [(of His Kingdom) there will be no end], concluding with a melisma, as if the composer was reluctant to have the music come to a cadence.

Kastalsky must have expressed some serious reserva­tions about Rachmaninoff's setting of the Creed, but the composer firmly stood his ground:

[Point No.] (5) As for the Creed, most emphatically "nay." I resolutely stand by both the cadences and the melodies (which are taken from a particular chorale68).

Still, I have made changes here and there (not in the melody, only the harmony ), but not many, so I will likely not be spared your displeasure.69

No. 11 - The central, most solemn portion of the Eucharist begins with the dialogue (anaphora) between the clergy (commencing with the words "Let us stand aright ... ") and the choir (beginning with the response "A mercy of peace, a sacrifice of praise"). Rach­maninoff's treatment of these musical elements expresses the lofty holiness of these moments through the use of intense crescendos (cf. No. 5) and somber, block-like triads with parallelisms and multiple doublings (mm. 19-22); in mm. 23 ff. the four-note motive from theCreed makes a brief reappearance.

The repetition of certain words and phrases evidently elicited critical comments from Kastalsky, for Rachmaninoff wrote to him:

[Point No.] (6) "Mflosi infra" I left as I had written it, and limited myself to a change in the tempo. Let it be "Dov6Ino medienno" [Somewhat slowly], and not "Ochefi medienno" [Very slowly]. It is all the same to me in this instance.

[Point No.] (7) The final words of"Dost6yno i pravedno "I have not yet changed. I would like very much to leave it this way. If they [presumably, the Office of Sacred Censorship] won't allow it, it's easy enough to change. Or perhaps it will slip by as is?? (sic)

[Point No.] (8) "Svfat" I have increased to 6 times. Forgive me! More than that I cannot.70

The musical elements of "A Mercy of Peace" are all choral responses to liturgical exclamations (ekphoneses) of the celebrants. The latter are either short, self-standing sentences or audible portions of longer eucharistic prayers, which, in the practice of latter centuries were said quietly by the celebrant.71 To provide essential musical continuity and logical sense in a concert performance, the appropriate exclamations (found in the Appendix) should be included.

No. 12 -The Divine Liturgy attains its highest most spiritual elevated plane during the Anaphora (or Eucha­ristic Canon), the climactic point of which is the hymn

"Tebe poyem" [We hymn Thee], also known as the "Hymn of the Epiclesis." During the singing of the hymn the celebrants invoke the Holy Spirit to descend and trans­form the offering of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Even more than in preceding instances, Rachmaninoff treats this moment of holiness with an air of awestruck, hushed near-silence. The chorus is asked to sing very softly with almost no dynamic in­flections, and the boy soprano solo ("a still, small voice") wafts down like the Dove descending. In another inno­vative break with tradition, Rachmaninoff offers the op­tion of having the chorus hum from the point where the soloist enters. 72

No. 13 -The Hymn to the Mother of God, "Dost6yno yest" ["It is truly fitting"] brings back a more festive mood of glorification. The colors here are bright and luminescent, as the composer makes extensive use of the treble voices. Although cast in 3/4 time, the setting contains subtle hemiolas in the middle section. In con­nection with this movement Rachmaninoff wrote to Kastalsky: "[Point No.] (9) In "Dost6yno Bogor[oditsu]" please note variant No. 21. This way, I think, is better, and also the ending will be made more effective at the descent of the basses into their lower register."73 (This is the final musical point addressed in the surviving correspondence between Rachmaninoff and Kastalsky.) In the published score measures 33-36 contain an ossia,

in which the bass part is transposed an octave higher. This seems to be the variant for which Rachmaninoff expressed a preference, even though he let the other version stand, perhaps fearing that the texture would be too top-heavy.

The Hymn to the Mother of God is followed by several choral responses and a litany, which maintain the tonality of A-flat major until the very end, when it shifts to F minor, in anticipation of the Lord's Prayer. In a concert setting the responses and litany may be omitted, and the two hymns can be linked with the exclamation introducing the Lord's Prayer.

No. 14 -Like the Creed, the Lord's Prayer in the Orthodox Divine Liturgy is commonly recited or sung to a simple melody by the entire assembly. Composed choral settings, few as they are, have never treated this prayer for double chorus, as does Rachmaninoff. Yet, as elsewhere in the Liturgy, his setting, for all its inno­vative design, is strongly rooted in tradition. Strongly predominant throughout most of the hymn is a melodic formula, repeated in ostinato-like fashion, along with the opening words "Otche nash" repeated in the oppo­site chorus. The acoustic effect intended by the double­chorus writing is, once again, that of totally surround­ing and engulfing the listener, as occurs in a church building when an entire congregation sings. The rapid, murmured repetition of the words lends an added di­mension to this most universal of Christian prayers:

while some worshippers (here, part of the choir) de­claim the text "publicly" for all to hear, others (the other part of the choir) humbly whisper it only to them­selves.

No. 15 - Instead of appending the responses after the Lord's Prayer to No. 14, Rachmaninoff placed them in a new section, having shifted the modality from F minor to F major. In a concert setting the first three responses may be omitted; the brief hymn "Yedfn Svfat" [Only One is Holy], also a response to an exclamation, may be either omitted or retained; the Communion Hymn follows immediately.

No. 16 - Historically, the Communion Hymn con­sisted of a psalm, chanted verse by verse, with a single psalm verse (or another passage from Scripture) serv­ing as a refrain. With time, the psalmody was suppressed and only the refrain remained. Since the Communion Hymn was required to cover the time during which the clergy partook of Holy Communion at the altar, both the Byzantine and Slavic chant traditions developed lengthy, melismatic melodies for these hymns. After the advent of Western-style polyphony into the Russian Church, some extended polyphonic settings were com­posed, but not many. More predominant was the prac­tice, adopted in Russia from the late seventeenth cen­tury, of performing the Communion Hymn quickly, in recitative fashion on a single chord, and following it with a "sacred concerto"-an extended motet-like work on either a prescribed liturgical text (such as Rachm­aninoff's concerto "V moiftvab neusi"payushchuyu," for example) or on a non-prescribed text chosen from the psalms or other Scripture.

Rachmaninoff, however, chose the more traditional route and decided to compose an extended setting us­ing only the prescribed text of the Sunday Communion Hymn (Psalm 148:1, followed by Alleluia). In doing so, he again drew upon the imagery of the heavenly hosts singing unceasing praises, as in No. 6, "Svfady B6zhe." While the two hymns differ in terms of overall musical architecture, they are quite similar in the use of rhythmic ostinati and undulating eighth-note motives. Once again, Rachmaninoff demonstrates that, as a great artist, he was able to embody in music his subtle, yet profound instinctive understanding of the Divine Liturgy.

No. 17 - Following the completion of the Com­munion Hymn, the Gifts are brought out for the com­munion of the laity. Rachmaninoff sets the brief re­sponse "Blagosloven grfadYy" [Blessed is He Who comes] (itself, a vestige of the Communion Hymn for Palm Sunday), to music drawn from the "Hosannas" of No.11; the musical connection here is obvious, since these two texts are linked in the scriptural account of Christ's entrance into Jerusalem. But insofar as "Blagosloven grfadYy" is the response to the deacon's invitation "to

draw near" for communion, it may be omitted in a con­cert setting.

While the laity are receiving Holy Communion, it has been traditional to sing the Paschal Communion Hymn "Telo Hrist6vo priimf'fe" [Receive the Body of Christ]; this text, however, is not prescribed in the Ser­vice Book, and Rachmaninoff did not set it, but pro­ceeded straightway to the first post-Communion hymn of thanksgiving, "Vfdehom svet fsiinn"iy" [We have seen the true light]. In the common practice of the Rus­sian Church, this hymn, which is a feast-day proper from the Vespers of Pentecost, is usually sung to a pre­scribed formulaic melody in Tone 2. Perhaps there was a time when this hymn and the one following it were intended to be sung by the entire assembly (who had all received Communion), and for this reason did not be­come the subject of elaborate musical settings (cf. "Only begotten Son"); as the practice of frequent communion by and large disappeared in the Russian Church, so did the rationale for a musical setting conducive to congre­gational participation. Be that as it may, in Rachmani­noff's view a simple recitative setting clearly would not do justice to a text that speaks of a salvific, mysti­cal encounter with God. While purists may question the appropriateness of dominant-seventh chords and chro­maticisms to express this text, Rachmaninoff was clearly seeking to heighten the meaning of these words. The­matically, he linked the text "fierazdelney Tr6itse po­klaniayemsfa" [ worshipping the undivided Trinity] with the passage in No. 11 that speaks of "Tr6itse yedino­sushchney i nerazdeiney" [(It is fitting and right to wor­ship) the Trinity, one in essence and undivided].

No. 18 - The same observations made with regard to "Vfdebom svet fsiinn"iy" apply also to the second post-Communion hymn, "Da isp6lnfatsfa usta nasha" [Let our mouths be filled]. Rachmaninoff treats this text as well in an unconventional, through-composed set­ting, which bears an air of hushed reverence. In the concluding "Alleluias" a thematic reference is made back to No. 16. The Little Litany that follows also contains thematic references to preceding litanies; in a concert setting the litany and the responses that follow may be omitted.

No. 19 - Rachmaninoff's setting of the concluding acclamation "Budi fmfa Ghosp6dne" [Blessed be the name of the Lord] is traditional in that this hymn is sung three times, usually on single chord, with a cadential chord progression at the end. But the use of double chorus with echo effects is highly unconventional. The double chorus texture serves as a motif that links the conclusion of the Liturgy to the earlier sections set for double chorus.

No. 20 - The final doxology continues the fanfare­like character of the preceding section. Once again, Rachmaninoff succeeds in imbuing material commonly

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performed on a single-chord recitative with distinctive

melodic and harmonic interest.

Conclusion

From the little that has been written about Rach­

maninoff's Liturgy one may easily get the impression

that the work is somehow flawed, whether from the

standpoint of ecclesiastical style, its formal approach

to the liturgical text, or in terms of its choral writing.

For example, Yuri Keldysh writes: "Rachmaninoff's Lit­

urgy of St. John Chrysostom (1910) does not possess

the strict stylistic unity, which he achieved several years

later in his All-Night Vigil."74 The British writer Barrie

Martyn states that "the freedom of Rachmaninoff's set­

ting met with hostility from the ecclesiastical authori­

ties .... "75 However, the only documented opinion voiced

by an "ecclesiastical authority" is found in the memoirs

of Rachmaninoff's cousin Anna Trubnikova, quoting the

religious education teacher from the school where she

taught, who at the premiere of the Liturgy is reported to

have said: "The music is indeed wonderful, even too

beautiful, but with such music it is difficult to pray. [It

is] not churchly."76

As noted elsewhere, Rachmaninoff's choral writing

in the Liturgy is rich, colorful, and extremely free in its

use of registers, doublings, divisi and the like. He may

not have been entirely confident of his technique, as is

suggested in the letter that accompanied the first part of

the initial draft sent to Kastalsky for review, in which

Rachmaninoff asks Kastalsky, "Please pay attention also

to the sonority and mark those spots that will not sound

well."77 But in the final analysis, Rachmaninoff remained

faithful to his own compositional instincts, particularly

in the matter of sonority.78 While thanking Kastalsky

profusely for his "markings, corrections, and advice,"

Rachmaninoff did not hesitate to retort rather sharply

to Kastalsky's markings in the score, "Will this sound

well!?" "To this, I answer," wrote Rachmaninoff, "(a) I

don't know; (b) I assume that it will-since I wrote it

and ( c) that I wanted to ask you, since these things are

more evident to you from your 'lofty mountain.' That's

a11!"79 Ultimately, practical performance by a fine cho­

ral instrument demonstrates that Rachmaninoff's instincts

did not mislead him.

With regard to Rachmaninoff's approach to the Di­

vine Liturgy as an artistic and liturgical whole, it should

be said in Rachmaninoff's defense, that many contem­

porary writers and critics were lamenting the lack of

coherence between the musical forms of the works be­

ing written for the Church and the structural demands

of the liturgy itself. Undoubtedly this was due to the

fact that studies dealing with formal analysis of liturgi­

cal texts and melodies were non-existent; a course dealing

with this topic was proposed in 1914 at the Moscow

Synodal School, but never implemented. Thus, the critic

and publicist Alexander Nikolsky, himself an insightful

composer of church music, wrote in 1911:

In the practice of liturgical singing one observes a whole list of phenomena that cannot be justified in terms of their essential nature but persist solely by force of

tradition and habit [Nikolsky's emphases). In this re­spect there is much in church singing that requires re­evaluation and revision ... 80

By his inquisitive and thoughtful approach to the Di­

vine Liturgy, Rachmaninoff, wielding the instinct of a

great artist, certainly can be given credit for beginning

such a process of "re-evaluation and revision," even

though it may have been unrecognized by his contem­

poraries and has yet to find its proper followers in the

interrupted historical continuum of Russian church mu­

sic. As for the music itself, Barrie Martyn has correctly

pointed out that, far from being merely a trial run for

the All-Night Vigil, as some commentators have dis­

missed it, the Liturgy is [in fact] outstandingly beauti­

ful and musically satisfying in its own right. 81

All-Night Vigil, opus 37

Composition, Premiere, and Critical Reception

The years separating the Liturgy and the All-Night Vigil

have been described as a watershed in Rachmaninoff's

creative output, a time of turning away from the elegiac

lyricism that characterized his earlier works toward bolder,

more modernist tendencies. During this period he composed

another major choral work, The Bells, opus 35, a large-scale

"choral symphony" for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, based

on Edgar Allan Poe's famous text (in a Russian translation

by Bal'mont). Boris Asaf' ev has perceptively identified the

"clarion call, clattering by like an anxious whirlwind," in

The Bells, a work that emerged out of a troubled atmosphere

in Russia's national psyche. 82 Two years later, notes Asaf' ev,

Rachmaninoff restored his spiritual equilibrium by produc­

ing an "answer"-the All-Night Vigil, "a work grown from

the mighty roots of the national epos concerning the 'peace

of the whole world. "'83

Unlike the Liturgy, which is spoken of extensively

in Rachmaninoff's correspondence, the All-Night Vigil

is not mentioned at all in the letters written immedi­

ately preceding or during its creation. An item entitled

"A New Work by S. V. Rachmaninoff," which appeared

in the 15 December 1912 issue of the newspaper Utro

Rossii stated:

Currently S. V. Rachmaninoff is working on the "All­Night Vigil," which will make use of ancient Russian ecclesiastical chants. The score of the "All-Night Vigil" has already been promised to the [Moscow J Synodal Choir for the premier performance.84

It is not known whether Rachmaninoff worked on the

Vigil in 1913-14. The usual dating for his composition

of the work stems from a list of works he supplied to

Asaf' ev in April 1917, where it states that the All-Night

Vigil was composed in January-February 19 I 5.

Alexander Petrovich Smirnov, who in 1915 was a

boy alto in the Moscow Synodal Choir, describes in his

memoirs the singers' first encounter with Rachmaninoff's

score:

In February 1915, at one of the regular rehearsals of the Synodal Choir, there appeared on the music stands a new score in a blue cover. Opening the music, we saw the inscription: "S. Rachmaninoff. All-Night Vigil. To the memory of Stepan Vasil'yevich Smolensky". The score, like all the Synodal Choir's music, had been reproduced lithographically and had not yet gone through any publishing house. We were to be the first to perform the work on the concert stage ....

The task before us evoked a sense of joy both among the singers, and on the part of our conductor, Nikolai Mikhailovich Danilin, as could be perceived from his uplifted mood. This was due, in no small measure, to the dedication: for the Synodal Choir and School, the name of S. V. Smolensky was sacred. We began to rehearse with a sense of emotion. Ordinarily, at the start of the rehearsal process Danilin would play through a new work once, but this time he played it twice, accompany­ing the demonstration with short comments: "Listen one more time," or "This only appears to be difficult. It's difficult to play on the piano, but in the chorus it's easy." And indeed, Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil turned out not to be so difficult a piece for the Synodal Choir.

The work, which was completed by the composer in early February, was premiered on 10 March [1915] and received high acclaim from both music critics and lis­teners: equally admired were the music and the quality of the performance .... Despite the rule that prohibited applause at performances of sacred music, following the final chord of the Vigil the audience burst into tumultu­ous applause [but] only Rachmaninoff went out onto the empty stage, returning backstage with a twig of while lilac.

Altogether there were five performances [ of the Vigil]

that month,-all five in the Great Hall of the Russian Noble Assembly .... 85

The critics' reception of Rachmaninoff's All-Night

Vigil was, indeed, much more favorable than accorded

the Divine Liturgy five years earlier. Alexander Kastalsky

wrote: "By comparison with the Liturgy, in his new

work the composer has taken a major stride forward."

Noting that Rachmaninoff made use of authentic old

chants in many sections of the work, Kastalsky mar­

vels,

but one should hear what has become of the simple, straightforward melodies in the hands of a major art­ist! ... [Rachmaninoff exhibits] a loving and careful attitude towards our ancient ecclesiastical melodies.86

Another reviewer, V. Derzhanovsky, noted that in the

All-Night Vigil, Rachmaninoff's style exhibited not only

positive growth, but also a new universality-a quality

sought after by many creative artists of that period:

Perhaps never before has Rachmaninoff approached so close to the people, to their style, to their soul, as in this work. And, perhaps, this work in particular be­speaks a broadening of his creative flight, a conquest of

new dimensions of the spirit, and, hence, a genuine evolution of his powerful talent.87

As before, some other purists pointed out that "not ev­

erything [in the work] elicits a prayerful attitude" and

"not everything is churchly";88 such responses, how­

ever, merely confirmed the obvious-that in terms of

its design and artistic content, Rachmaninoff's Vigil ex­

ceeded and superseded the customary norms for the li­

turgical service music used in this office.

Historical Precedents and Analysis

Unlike the Divine Liturgy, the rubrical structure of

which is relatively unchanging, the All-Night Vigil pre­

sents a much more complex rubrical and structural pic­

ture. The service, as celebrated in a typical Russian

cathedral or parish setting at the turn of the twentieth

century had two variants: the Resurrectional Vigil served

on Saturday night (at the start of the liturgical cycle for

Sunday), and the Fes tal Vigil served on the eves of

major feast days. Both variants shared a certain number

of fixed, unchanging hymns, which constituted the or­

dinary of the Vigil (see Tables 1 and 2).

Table 1

The Ordinary of Vespers

The Call to Worship, "Come, let us worship"

The Introductory Psalm, "Bless the Lord, 0 my soul"

The First Antiphon of the First Kathisma, "Blessed

is the man"

The Evening Hymn, "Gladsome Light"

The Song of St. Symeon, "Lord, now lettest Thou"

Table 2

The Ordinary of Matins

The Six Psalms (customarily read)

The Polyeleos, "Praise the name of the Lord"

The Great Doxology, "Glory to God in the highest"

The Kontakion "To Thee, the victorious Leader"

(actually the conclusion of the First Hour, which is ap­

pended to Matins)

To this list may be added several litanies and responses, which

tend to remain constant for every Vigil.

Beyond this, however, both the Resurrectional and

the Festal Vigils have what may be termed "ordinary

propers," unchanging hymns that are "proper" to each

type of Vigil. For the Resurrectional Vigil these in­

clude: at Vespers, the Troparion "Rejoice, 0 Virgin";

and at Matins, the Resurrectional Troparia "Blessed art

Thou, 0 Lord ... The angelic council," the Hymn "Hav­

ing beheld the Resurrection", and the Canticle of the

Mother of God, "My soul magnifies the Lord." The

Festal Vigil has one such "ordinary proper," the first

gradual antiphon in Tone 4, "From my youth."

In addition, both types of Vigils contain "proper

ordinaries," hymns that remain constant in terms of text,

but whose melodies change according to the cycle of

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Eight Tones (the Octoechos), e.g., the Vesper Psalms "Lord, I call" et seq., the verse "The Lord is God" and the Psalms of Praise at Matins. The Resurrectional Vigil also has several fixed sets of hymns (stichera, troparia, kontakia, prokeimena, and canons) that constantly ro­tate according to an eight-week cycle, and two resur­rectional troparia, "Today salvation has come" and "Thou didst arise from the tomb," which are sung on alternate weeks (the first, in the weeks of Tones 1, 3, 5, and 7, and the second, in the weeks of Tones 2, 4, 6, and 8).

Finally, each type of Vigil contains numerous proper

hymns (in the conventional sense of that term), which change according to the event or saint being commemo­rated on a given day of the liturgical calendar.

Composers who set the All-Night Vigil before Rachmaninoff had taken, for the most part, one of sev­eral fundamentally different approaches. Some, like Tchaikovsky in his chant-based opus 52 (1882) and Arkhangelsky in his freely composed opus 39 (1897), set a combination of hymns and responses from both the Resurrectional and Festal Vigils, focusing on the unchanging hymns; Tchaikovsky, in addition, harmo­nized the chants for some of the "eight-Tone sets" from the resurrectional Octoechos cycle. Other composers were more selective. Mikhail Ippolitov-lvanov, in his freely composed All-Night Vigil, opus 43 (1907), also set a combination of ordinary hymns and responses from the Resurrectional and Festal Vigils, 89 but went beyond tra­ditional limits by offering freely composed settings of "Gh6spodi, vozzvah" [Lord, I call] and "Svfat Ghosp6d Bog nash" [Holy is the Lord our God], which normally change according to the eight Tones. Semyon Pan­chenko's Vigil, opus 45 (1908) is entirely chant-based and sets only the major ordinary hymns, again combin­ing the Resurrectional and Festal Vigils.90 Alexander Nikolsky's Vigil, opus 26 (1909), while mostly freely composed, uses chant-like melodies, prefiguring Rachma­ninoff's approach, and sets only the major ordinary hymns.91 Alexandre Gretchaninoff, in his Vigil, opus 59 (1912), adopts an approach that is very similar to Nikolsky's, using freely composed, chant-like melodies for the major ordinary hymns.92 Pavel Chesnokov pub­lished two settings of the All-Night Vigil, opus 21 (1909) and opus 44 (1913). The first is a composite work, com­prising a number of individual hymns composed ear­lier, to which the composer added litanies and several ordinaries not previously set by him.93 The second is a setting very similar to those of his predecessors, focus­ing on the major ordinary hymns in a mixture of free compositions and chant harmonizations.94 Besides the settings published under a single opus number, enumer­ated above, many composers, among whom Alexander Kastalsky, Victor Kalinnikov, and Nikolai Kompanei­sky are the most prominent ones, produced individual settings of most of the major ordinary hymns of the Vigil without, however, unifying them into a single opus.

All these works contain splendid choral writing,

much of which exceeds purely liturgical norms. But the only major work that even approaches Rachmaninoff's in terms of its epic scale and musical complexity is Gretchaninoff's All-Night Vigil. Nevertheless, after its first performance in 1912 by the Moscow Synodal Choir, Gretchaninoff's work did not receive the critical ac­claim and celebrity that was immediately accorded Rachmaninoff's setting three years later.

As he approached his own setting of the All-Night Vigil, Rachmaninoff may well have been aware of the various settings that had been already composed, for this music was very much "in the air," particularly in Moscow. The curiosity and attention to detail with which he had approached the composition of the Liturgy, so well-documented in his correspondence, suggests that he pondered many of the same questions with regard to the Vigil service, particularly in view of the fact that almost three years passed between the newspaper an­nouncement of his plans to write the Vigil and the premiere of the work. The end result shows the same degree of thoughtfulness and purposefulness found in the Liturgy, although in this case, the composer deliber­ately made a number of different choices.

No concrete documentary evidence exists to sug­gest that Rachmaninoff was influenced by a specific previously composed setting. It may not be coinciden­tal, however, that after looking to Tchaikovsky while writing a freely composed Liturgy, Rachmaninoff also followed his lead in drawing upon the well-spring of ecclesiastical chants for the All-Night Vigil, just as Tchai­kovsky had done thirty-three years earlier. The goals of the two composers, however, differed fundamentally: Tchaikovsky, in his own words, was "attempting to re­turn to [the Russian Orthodox] Church that which prop­erly belongs to it, but was forcibly torn away," i.e., its indigenous chant melodies, and was "by no means act­ing as an independent artist, but rather as an arranger of the ancient chants";95 thus, in his All-Night Vigil,

opus 52, he not only struggled with defining the scope, artistic form, and musical style of the Vigil as a unified musical work, but also allowed himself to be concerned (and, to some extent, confounded) by liturgical and ru­brical minutiae, such as litany responses, variable hymns from the Octoechos, etc.96 Rachmaninoff, on the other hand, appeared to be scarcely concerned with writing utilitarian music for church use, but, rather, succeeded in creating what Yuri Keldysh calls "a monumental epic canvas, worthily continuing the nationalist traditions of the 'Mighty Five,' the only work of such artistic scope in Russian music after Rimsky-Korsakov's Tale of the

City of Kitezh." Like Rimsky-Korsakov's opera, the Vigil

embodied a fundamental understanding of the Russian people's life as being "highly ethical in its essence, rather than focusing on its occasionally chaotic exte­rior." Keldysh continues:

The epic tone of the images coexists in the Vigil with

a vividly manifested personal creative impulse. This is

not simply an embodiment of popular national ideas and concepts, but also a sincere and heartfelt confession on the part of the composer, his meditation on life and on each person's obligations to one's neighbor and one­self. 97

Rachmaninoff's ultimate artistic goals determined the manner in which he borrowed and used chant melodies. From the time Tchaikovsky brought the melodic treasury of chant to the attention of serious musicians, Russian compos­ers sought various ways of harmonizing or contrapuntally treating the chants. Much attention was focused, sometimes in a deliberate and self-conscious manner, on the technical devices and sophistication with which this task was accom­plished. Rachmaninoff's approach was markedly different, as Keldysh observes:

Already beginning with the First Symphony, his works constantly abound with melodic turns resembling zna­menny chant, which became organic and integral ele­ments of his own musical language. For this reason, when heard in the Vigil, [the chants] are perceived not as an artificially introduced quotation, but as a fully natural and unpretentious means for the composer to express his innermost thoughts, ideas, and emotions .... For [Rach­maninoff] these melodies are not an immutable cantus

firmus, but thematic material to be utilized creatively.98

In a letter to Joseph Yasser, Rachmaninoff himself addressed the question of actual ecclesiastical melodies as well as melodies derived from or influenced by the latter. He writes:

You are correct in saying that Russian folk song and Orthodox church chants have had an influence on the creative works of Russian composers. I would only add "on some"! As to the question, is this influence "uncon­scious" ... or "conscious", it is difficult to answer. Especially with regard to the unconscious! These are murky waters! But the second case, which could more easily be called an "imitation of style," is obvious. Composers themselves, if they wished, could show you examples. I shall show you one as well. According to the rules of the Orthodox Church, some hymns of the Vigil must be written to themes from the Obihod [The Book of Common Chant]. For example: "Blagoslovi, dushe moya, Ghospoda" [Bless the Lord, 0 my soul], "NYfie ot­pushchayesh'i" [Lord, now lettest Thou], "SlavoslcS­viye" [The (great) doxology], and so forth. Others may be original. In my Vigil, everything that falls into the second category was consciously counterfeited [in the style of] the Obihod. For example: "Blazhen muzh" [Blessed is the man], "BogorcSditse" [Rejoice, 0 Vir­gin], etc.99

Indeed, Rachmaninoff's "counterfeits" are so skillfully created that a person not intimately familiar with the actual chant repertoire would have a difficult time dis­tinguishing them from the genuine melodies. 100

While critics noted his "loving and careful attitude with respect to the ancient church chants,"101 Rachma­ninoff's choice and treatment of the melodies was de­void of dogmatic strictness. He used both melodies that

were widely sung in church and had seen numerous prior arrangements, such as the Russian "Greek" Chant for No. 2, "Blagoslovf, dushe moya, Gh6spoda" [Bless the Lord, 0 my soul], and the Kievan Chants for No. 4, "Svete tfhiy" [Gladsome Light] and No. 5, "Nine otpu­shchayeshi"' [Lord, now lettest Thou], as well as zna­menny chant melodies that were hardly ever heard in church. 102 He approached the melodies with a consider­able degree of freedom, in some instances altering them slightly, in other instances transposing them and dis­tributing them among various voices, as he displayed them in varied harmonic or contrapuntal surroundings. In this respect he was clearly building upon the founda­tion laid earlier by such composers as Kastalsky, Ches­nokov, Nikolsky, Victor Kalinnikov, and other compos­ers affiliated with the Moscow Synodal School.

In choosing which hymns from the Vigil service to set, Rachmaninoff's foremost concern was, evidently, the large-scale artistic unity and balance of the overall cycle, rather than the more narrow scope of liturgical requirements. Thus, he omitted all but two choral re­sponses (the "Amens" at the beginning of Nos. 1 and 2, which are actually redundant) and focused instead on the major hymns of the ordinary. Unlike his predeces­sors, however, he chose to set only hymns from the Resurrectional Vigil and none whatsoever from the Festal Vigil. He set none of the "proper ordinaries" from the eight-Tone cycle, but did include both Resurrectional Troparia following the Great Doxology. In addition, he set two hymns that, in the common practice of the Rus­sian Church, are generally not sung at all by the choir: "Priidfte, poklofi.fmsfa" [Come, let us worship] (No. 1), which is commonly sung only by the priest or choir of clergy; and the verses before the reading of the Six Psalms, "Slava v vishfi.ih B6gu" [Glory to God in the highest] (No. 7), which is ordinarily chanted by the reader. 103 Consequently, the overall structure of Rachman­inoff's Vigil is unlike that of any of his predecessors and stands unique among the works of the New Rus­sian Choral School.

Discussion of Individual Movements

No. 1 - The All-Night Vigil begins with the open­ing call to prayer, "Priidfte, poklofi.fmsfa" [Come, let us worship], which brings the faithful in from the realm of the secular and worldly chaos to the peace and order of the spiritual domain. Recognizing the sense of per­sonal displacement that happens here, Rachmaninoff evi­dently felt it was necessary to set these words to origi­nal music, rather than simply beginning with the Intro­ductory Psalm 103 [ 104], as all of his predecessors had done. 104 He succeeds in writing a hymn that masterfully expresses the transition from the earthly to the heav­enly: nominally in the key of C major, the music spends most of the time in the realm of the supertonic (D mi­nor) and its dominant (A major), resulting in an un­settled quality until the last measures on the pedal tone

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G finally define the key. The parallel musical structure with which each phrase

begins reflects the structure of the text, based on Psalm 94 [95]:6. The multi-layered melody is of Rachmaninoff's invention, but its undulating, step-wise movement and asymmetric, text-related structure at once establish a kinship with the ancient znamenny chant. The bowing motion of the faithful is musically depicted through the shape of the opening phrase.*l

The "Amen" preceding the hymn is intended as a response to the exclamation intoned by the celebrant: "Glory to the Holy, Consubstantial, Life-creating, and Undivided Trinity, now and ever, and unto ages of ages" (see Appendix). In the editor's opinion, the "Amen" should be sung only if it is preceded by the exclama­tion; otherwise, it should be omitted altogether. 105

No. 2 - The Introductory Psalm of Vespers, which begins every liturgical day by extolling the wonders of God's creation, consists of select verses from Psalm 103 [ 104 ]-verses 1, 6, and 24-followed by refrains such as "Blagosloven yesf, Gh6spodf" ["Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord"], "Dfvna deia Tvoya, Gh6spodi" ["Mar­velous are Thy works, 0 Lord"] and "Slava Ti, Gh6spodi, sotvoi'fvshemu fsfa" ["Glory to Thee, 0 Lord, who hast created all"]. In his setting Rachmaninoff employs the chant version most commonly sung in the Russian Church, the so-called "Greek" Chant, which he uses in its entirety, except for the second phrase. The cantus

firmus echoes back and forth between the solo alto, the first tenors (in mm. 1-30), and the first sopranos (m. 35 to the end) of the chorus. Rachmaninoff quotes the chant verbatim except for one adjustment in the first state­ment of the tenor where he uses the melody from a later refrain. This particular chant is the most common one associated with this psalm. In a manner resembling the second movement of the Liturgy, the use of the solo voice personalizes this song of praise, while the choral voices depict two contrasting realms-the earthly and the heavenly.

This is the first time in the work that the voices are instructed to hum, in passages indicated by the sign "+" along with the direction to perform those notes "s zakriti:m rtom" ("with closed mouths"). No composer of Russian liturgical music prior to this had used this coloristic device, except for Rachmaninoff himself in the Liturgy, where he suggested humming as an ossia

in hymn No. 12, "Tebe poyem" [We Hymn Thee] at the point where the choir accompanies the soprano solo. By removing the words and effectively reducing voices to the role of musical instruments, Rachmaninoff was essentially violating one of the ancient maxims of Or­thodox Christian tradition, which asserted that God

*lAithough the predominant English liturgical translation ren­ders the word "pokloiifmsfa" as "worship," a more literal render­ing of the Church Slavonic would be "bow down."

should be praised only by sounds that were "animate" and "intelligent." 106 (The same coloristic device is used in movements 5 and 9.) Nevertheless, in Rachmaninoff's settings, the liturgical text always remains predominant and understandable in at least one of the voices.

The use of solo voices in Orthodox liturgical music has a long history, both in the realm of chant inherited from the Byzantine East and in the Western European style that entered the Russian Church in the late 1600s. The role of the solo voice, and with it, the nature of the vocal writing, tended to be different, depending on whether they reflected the more ancient Eastern prac­tice or later Western traditions: in the first instance, soloists played a primarily liturgical function, declaim­ing scriptural or poetic texts and serving as facilitators for congregational participation (e.g., "lining out" litur­gical texts or chanting variable verses against fixed re­frains), whereas in post-1600 Western-style church mu­sic solo voices tend to draw upon an aesthetic shaped by the realm of opera, with an emphasis on technical display and dramatic emotionalism. 107 In characteristic fashion, Rachmaninoff manages to bridge both aesthet­ics here. Although the solo part in No. 2 is nothing more than the ancient chant sung note for note, through the rich harmonies and contrapuntal weaving of the ac­companying voices Rachmaninoff imbues the solo part with a breadth and sensuousness not found in the origi­nal melody. Interestingly, in the premier performances by the Synodal choir, the solo part was sung by a group of boy altos. ws

Since there is no break between the first and sec­ond movements, the C major tonality is shared by them both. The "Amen" at the beginning of the movement is not appropriate liturgically at this point and should be omitted in performance. 109

No. 3 - The singing and recitation of psalms is an essential element of every Orthodox service, and for this purpose the Psalter is divided into twenty sections of roughly equal length, called kathismata (from the Greek "to sit down," suggesting that the congregation and the clergy, who normally stand throughout worship services, would sit for this extended set of readings). The first kathisma begins on the first day of the week, or Sunday (i.e., at the vigil on Saturday evening, since the Orthodox liturgical day begins at sunset) with the first Psalm, "Blazhen muzh" [Blessed is the Man]. In actual practice the kathisma is abridged to certain key verses in the first three psalms: verses 1 and 6 from Psalm 1, verses 11 and 13 from Psalm 2, and verses 8 and 9 from Psalm 3. Each verse of the psalm is fol­lowed by the three-fold refrain "Alleluia."110 Then comes the doxology and the triple repetition of the concluding formula for psalmody: "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia! Glory to Thee, 0 God!" (a clear Trinitarian reference). Al­though this hymn is freely composed, Rachmaninoff follows the traditional form to the letter.

Having devised a "counM'hffi111'.-..clfant melody for the voices at the same time. This somewhat obscures the psalm, Rachmaninoff proceeds to treat it as though the counterpoint, but leaves the text clear and intelli-the work were a harmonization of an actual chant (typi- gible. In Rachmaninoff's setting the main text of the cally the chants for this kathisma are simple, syllabic, hymn continues to be declaimed homophonically in the and repetitive), even going so far as to utilize unbarred upper voices, while the imitation occurs in the lower meter. Like the anonymous chant composers of the past, voices on the repeated words "Svete tfhiy" (mm. 10-he uses the two and three note "phraselets" (popevki) 14). common to znamenny, Gregorian, and many other bod­ies of chant, to closely mirror the word accents and inflections. The composer exploits the parallel struc­tures in the six psalm verses, yet displays a sensitivity to the details of each specific text. The voice leading of the accompanying voices remains melodic and linear in nature, which allows the "chant" to move forward, un­encumbered by vertical harmonic structures. As in No. 2, Rachmaninoff subtly orchestrates the voices for the sake of color, strength, and variety, combining them (e.g., adding the soprano II to the alto I in mm. 21 to 27) and dividing them (e.g., m. 27). Harmonically, the psalm phrases are quite fixed in the tonality of F major/D minor, 11 1 but at each "alleluia" refrain Rachmaninoff finds a new key relationship and a new and different way to voice the chords, adding intensity, dynamism, and volume, until the "Slava Ottsu ... " ["Glory to the Father. .. "] bursts forth with full vigor at the climax of the movement.

No. 4 - "Svete tfhiy" [Gladsome Light] is one of the oldest Christian hymns still in regular use in the Church, having been composed in the third century. The hymn originally accompanied the entrance of the clergy into the church and the lighting of the evening lamp at sunset.

In the Vigil, this is Rachmaninoff's first utilization of imitative contrapuntal techniques. Since the intelli­gibility of the text has always been of paramount im­portance in Orthodox church music, composers of the New ,Russian Choral School rarely utilized any type of studied fugal or canonic construction in the manner of earlier composers such as Bortniansky and Lvov. Stepan Smolensky (to whom Rachmaninoff dedicated the Vigil)

believed that the appropriate treatment of Russian chant melodies w.as harmony and counterpoint of an indig­enous Russian type, modelled after the counter-voiced polyphony (podgolosochnaya polifoniya) of folk song and early Russian sacred polyphony. Smolensky's prin­ciples found practical implementation in the chant ar­rangements of numerous composers: Kastalsky was the acknowledged trend-setter, but similar techniques can be found in the choral works of Rimsky-Korsakov, Kompaneisky, Gretchaninoff, Victor Kalinnikov, and, to a somewhat lesser degree, Nikolsky, Chesnokov, Shvedoff, and others. In this style of counterpoint, char­acteristic motives found in the primary melody may be imitated in other voices, but instead of the text being also displaced temporally (as in traditional Western Eu­ropean imitative polyphony), it is pronounced by all

The Kievan chant upon which the movement is based has a limited compass and consistently repeats the shape of the first five notes. In addition, Rachmaninoff ex­ploits two smaller motives-the half-step of the first two notes and C-B-flat-C. From this relatively simple material he builds a sonorous superstructure, a shim­mering musical evocation of the Light Eternal, in the midst of which the solo voice lifts up a song of praise to the Trinity. Knitting everything together is the chant melody itself, which begins in the first tenors, moves to the first sopranos in m. 5, migrates up a step to the solo tenor (mm. 19-25), then returns to the original key in the altos and first basses doubled at the octave (mm. 26-27), and finally back to the soprano (mm. 28-38).There are striking examples of choral orchestration: e.g.,the chant is doubled in the middle voices (altos andfirst basses in mm. 26-27 and alto, second tenor, andfirst bass in m. 3 7) for emphasis, and the men's partsdivide into three parts for richness and color.

No. 5 - The service of Vespers recalls many themes from the Old Testament, from the creation of the uni­verse to the prophecies and promise of a Messiah. The Canticle of St. Symeon, "Lord, now lettest Thou" (Luke 2:29-32), describes the fulfillment of the final promise, as in the Old Testament Temple the elder Symeon rec­ognizes the Messiah in the infant Jesus, brought there by His parents, according to the Law. The slow rocking motion of the accompanying voices on two-note de­scending figures, akin to a lullaby, imparts to the piece a static and peaceful quality. With a prayer in the "first person," Rachmaninoff again chooses a single voice as the medium of the message. The tenor soloist (or alter­natively a few choral tenors)112 carries the chant (again Kievan) with a few rhythmic adjustments. In measures 17-19, at the words "yezhe yesf ugotoval" ["whichThou hast prepared"], is found one of the most obvi­ously contrapuntal sections of the entire work, a rareinstance of an actual chant melody used in imitation.

This was reputedly Rachmaninoff's favorite move­ment in the Vigil, which the composer requested be performed at his funeral, a wish that was not to be carried out.

No. 6 - After giving due praise to God, the Ortho­dox Church always pays homage to the Virgin Mary­the Theotokos (lit., "the one who gave birth to God"). The vesperal portion of the All-Night Vigil concludes with "Bogoroditse Deva" [Rejoice, 0 Virgin], the scrip­tural angelic greeting (later adapted for use in the Ro-

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man Catholic rosary). Although the hymn is written in a freely harmonic style, the narrow compass of the melody, which gently rises and falls in inflection along with the words, once again shows that Rachmaninoff never strayed far from the "chant style" anywhere in the Vigil. This is perhaps most clearly felt in the alto parts at mm. 15-20 (at the words "Blagoslovenna Ti" v zhenah, i blagosloven Plod chreva Tvoyego" ["Blessed art Thou amongst women, and blessed is the Fruit of Thy womb"). While the altos carry the text, the so­prano and tenor parts, moving in octaves, surround the melody with a beatific "halo" of sound.

The rubrics prescribe that "Bogoroditse Devo" be sung three times at this point in the service. The obvi­ous unsuitability of Rachmaninoff's setting for this pur­pose is an argument in support of the view that the All­

Night Vigil is better suited to a concert performance, than a liturgical context.113

No. 7 - The morning office, or Matins, begins with the reading of the "Six Psalms" (Ps. 3, 37 [38], 62 [63], 87 [88], 102 [103], and 142 [143]), preceded by the verses "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men" (Luke 2:14), the hymn sung by the angels at the dawn of Christ's nativity; and the verse "O Lord, open Thou my lips, and my mouth shall pro­claim Thy praise" (Psalm 50 [51]:17).114 Customarily, in the context of a Resurrectional All-Night Vigil these verses are not sung, but read; consequently, there are no chants for this text.115 Rachmaninoff's solution was to take the opening musical material from the Great Doxology (No. 12), which shares the same text, and use it as the basis of a new composition. By means of this detail the composer established a thematic link within the overall musical structure of the Vigil that is unique and unprecedented in the Russian liturgical choral lit­erature.

The repetition of textual phrases indicated in the service book (thrice for the first verse and twice for the second) is retained by the composer only for the first verse, resulting in the structure: A-A-A-B. The hori­zontal, linear nature of the chant in the A sections is well served by the simple writing in the accompanying voices and by the extremely slow harmonic motion. The homophonic B section (not based on chant) stands in marked contrast. Its simplicity is, at the same time, imbued with such earnestness, that it probably could not withstand a second repetition.

Perhaps the most singular feature of this movement is the onomatopoeic sound of bells, heard in the three part chords of the soprano and tenor and later in the great rocking back and forth of the entire choir (mm. 11-13), culminating with a massive resounding chordin which all the overtones are layered. In a liturgicalcontext bells would be rung at this point in the service.

Rachmaninoff, along with many of his countrymen, had a fascination with bells. 116 The imitation of bell

sounds can be heard in many of his works, including the "Russian Easter" movement from his Fantasy (First Suite) for Two Pianos, opus 5 (1893) and, of course, the mighty work The Bells, composed not long before the Vigil. (Some even hear bells in the famous C-sharp Minor Prelude, opus 3.) The other major instance of bell-like vocal writing in the Vigil appears in No. 12, the Great Doxology (in mm. 38-39, a direct quote from No. 7, and in mm. 89-102 in the tenor parts).

No. 8 - One of the musical high points of every Vigil service is "l:Jvalfte fmia Ghospodfie" [Praise the Name of the Lord], otherwise known as the polyeleion­

the hymn of "many mercies."117 All the lights in the church are turned on, the Royal Doors are opened, and the clergy in full vestments process to the center of the church to stand with the people.

In Rachmaninoff's setting two musical layers are evident: the muscular znamenny chant melody sung by the altos and basses, while above it, the sopranos and tenors hover and swirl like choirs of cherubim and sera­phim. To highlight this movement from among those around it Rachmaninoff moves the key to A-flat major, up a fourth from the previous movement. He also rhyth­mically modifies the chant somewhat to give it an even more syncopated, march-like quality (the composer's performance indication reads "yarko, s tvfordi"m, bod­ri:m rftmom" ["spirited, with a bold (lit. 'firm'), ener­getic rhythm"].

No. 9 - The stage is now set for the dramatic events of Christ's Resurrection to unfold in a series of hymns ( called Resurrectional troparia), each introduced by the verse "Blagosloven yesf, Ghospodi, nauchf iii.fa oprav­dafiiyem Tvofm" ["Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord, teach me Thy statutes"]; in Rachmaninoff's interpretation these verses take on the character of a refrain piously whis­pered by the faithful onlookers. On center stage is the cosmic drama occurring simultaneously in the heavenly realm ("The angelic council was amazed ... ") and on earth, as the myrrh-bearing women journey early in the morning to anoint Christ's body but instead encounter an angelic messenger and the empty tomb. As the joy­ous message is reiterated again and again, using color­ful contrasts of vocal scoring, the murmuring crowd of faithful emerges and joins in a universal hymn of praise, "Alleluia."

Rachmaninoff seizes the opportunity to exploit the dramatic elements in what are, in their essence, narra­tive hymns.118 He takes greater liberties with the chant, particularly with regards to rhythm, than in any other movement; employs rapid shifts between loud and soft dynamics, homophonic and contrapuntal texture; and frequently changes the character, tempo and voicing. Once again he uses humming voices as a sonorous back­ground. One of the more interesting and varied features has to do with the various settings of the words spoken

by the angel to the myrrh-bearers (see Matthew 28:5-7; Mark 16:6-7; Luke 24:5-7). In the first instance (mm. 22-3), the words are scored for second sopranos, first altos, and first tenors in unison; in the second occurrence (mm. 34-38), the composer utilizes a tenor soloist; in the thirdcase (mm. 50-51 ), first sopranos and first tenors sing inoctaves. Thus, the heavenly "messenger from above" isalways portrayed by high voices, but in multiple andvaried dimensions.

Rachmaninoff obviously had a fondness for the music of this movement. Twenty-five years later, in 1940, he reworked the portion from the closing doxology (m. 54 to the end) into the finale of his last work, the Sym­

phonic Dances, opus 45.

No. 10 - At every Resurrectional All-Night Vigil the Gospel reading is taken from one of eleven pas­sages that describe the events connected with Christ's Resurrection. The hymn "Voskreseiiiye Hrist6vo vfdevshe" [Having beheld the resurrection] constitutes the faithful's response to the Gospel.

Although the stark phrases sung by the men's voices in octaves gives a particularly strong impression of a chant, evoking images of Russian "Old Believers,"119

this is simply another one of Rachmaninoff's "conscious counterfeits." In pitting the male voices against the fe­male voices and combining them at particular points of emphasis, the composer recalls another ancient practice of the early Church-the alternate singing by two choirs.

Some of the most austere and powerful music oc­curs in this movement of the Vigil, as the text recalls Christ's terrible sacrifice on the cross that preceded His ultimate triumph over death. Keldysh has suggested that for Rachmaninoff the final words of this hymn­"smertiyu smert razrushY" [by death (He has) death destroyed]-

took on a particularly profound and poignant meaning

during the bloody and, in his opinion, unjustified war.

The phrase is singled out by a sudden hush in dynamics

after the mighty choral exclamations that precede it,

giving it the character of a deeply emotional and heart­

felt confession.120

No. 11 - In the course of the All-Night Vigil ser­vice, the hymn "Voskreseiiiye Jji'ist6vo vfdevshe" is fol­lowed by a kanon, a proper hymn of some length con­sisting of nine odes (with the second ode typically omit­ted). In this complex poetic form each ode originally included an Old Testament canticle, followed by a the­matically related New Testament hymn called an heirmos,

followed, in turn, by several troparia that elaborate on the themes of the canticle and heirmos. The ninth ode of every kanon is based on the Canticle of the Virgin Mary, "Yelfchit dusha moya Gh6spoda" [My soul mag­nifies the Lord] (Luke 1 :46-55), the only New Testa­ment canticle used in the kanon and the only canticle still commonly sung in practice during the Resurrec-

tional Vigil. Traditionally, each verse of the canticle is followed by a refrain, in this case, the refrain "Chestiiey­shuyu heruvfm" [More honorable than the cherubim].121

Rachmaninoff does not treat Mary's words in a dra­matic fashion, but, rather, as an epic, prophetic utter­ance. The verses are set to a heavy chant-like melody, again of the composer's invention, which resides pri­marily in the basses. Contrasted with this is the light and luminous "angelic" refrain, in which Mary's high rank in the heavenly hierarchy is exalted.122

Tonally, there is a strong emphasis on G-dorian/B­flat major, with forays into the flatted supertonic (m. 38 et seq.), the subdominant-minor (m. 57 et seq.) and subdominant-major (m. 79 et seq.). It should be noted that in the refrain, with its measures of unequal length, the eighth-note remains constant.

No. 12 - In terms of the length and complexity of text, the Great Doxology "Shiva v vYshiiih B6gu" [Glory to God in the Highest] stands out as the main hymn of the entire All-Night Vigil. This very ancient hymn ( dat­ing from before the fourth century), a portion of which survives as the Gloria in excelsis of the Roman Mass, also includes texts found in the Te Deum and additional material from the Psalms. Every Christian theme, from glorification and thanksgiving to repentance and sup­plication, is contained in this hymn.

Needless to say, Rachmaninoff music succeeds in appropriately expressing the nuances of the text at ev­ery turn. The movement has two large subdivisions: the first (mm. 1-105) in E-flat major (in which the chant is transposed up by a minor third), and the second, the Trisagion "Svfady B6zhe, Svfady Ki'epkiy" [Holy God, Holy Mighty] (mm. 106-130) in C minor (with the chant melody transposed down by a step).

The text is carried by a simple znamenny chant melody (heard earlier in No. 7, at the start of Matins), which begins in the alto voice, with accompanying har­mony in the other voices increasing in complexity and sonority. Some very compelling contrapuntal imitations ensue (tenor in mm. 16-17; soprano in mm. 18-22) which take attention away from the true chant continuing in the alto. After m. 28, the chant migrates in both key and voice part through the remainder of the work. Be­ginning in m. 74, as the hymn drives towards its culmi­nation in the closing Thrice-Holy, Rachmaninoff's treat­ment of the chorus becomes increasingly quasi-orches­tral, as he layers numerous independent musical events and once again evokes images of bells (mm. 89-102).

Nos. 13 and 14 - In the context of a Resurrectional All-Night Vigil service, the Great Doxology is followed by one of two resurrectional troparia-"Diies spaseiiiye" ["Today salvation has come"], sung in the weeks gov­erned by Tones 1, 3, 5, and 7 of the Octoechos, or "Vos­ki'es iz gr6ba" ["Thou didst arise from the Tomb"], in the weeks of Tones 2, 4, 6, and 8. Rachmaninoff in-

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eluded both hymns in his Vigil, and in a concert setting it would be entirely appropriate to sing them both.123

Indeed, after the musical intensity of the Great Doxol­ogy, these hymns serve as a point of repose, inviting one to meditate upon the exalted mystery of Christ's resurrection.

Both are based on znamenny chant melodies that are similar in character, but treated somewhat differ­ently by the composer. While in No. 13 the chant lies entirely in the soprano, in No. 14 it begins in the so­prano, migrates to the bass (mm. 12-15), back to the soprano (mm.16-23), then to the tenor (mm. 24-26) and finally returns to the soprano. Both hymns contain a large amount of contrapuntal writing-short imitations of head motives, as well as homorhythmically moving counter-voices derived from the main chant. At times, in No. 13, Rachmaninoff ingeniously places such de­rived motives ahead of the cantus firmus, so that mo­mentarily the entrance of the chant appears to be an imitation. Elsewhere, such as at the end of No. 13 and at the beginning No. 14, moving contrapuntal voices embellish static notes of the chant almost to the point of obscuring the latter. Once again Rachmaninoff shows himself to be a master of vocal scoring, as he makes voices cross, double one another, and compete in ex­treme registers.

No. 15 - The All-Night Vigil service concludes with the reading of The First Hour (Prime), at the end of which is sung a Kontakion to the Mother of God, "Vzbrannoy voyev6de" [To Thee, the Victorious Leader]. Rachmaninoff used a Russian "Greek" Chant as the ba­sis for a vibrant, dynamic setting of this martial hymn; 124

in so doing, however, he was departing from estab­lished liturgical musical traditions, according to which settings of this hymn tended to be quite simple and formulaic. This fact lends additional strength to the ar­gument that the Vigil is a concert work rather than a liturgical one: whereas a concert work profits from a loud and rousing conclusion, such a closing is imprac­tical for a service of some two-and-a-half or three hours' duration, if only due to the fatigue of the singers. 125

Conclusion

Despite the points mentioned in the preceding dis­cussion, the question of whether Rachmaninoff's All­

Night Vigil is a work intended for the concert stage or for liturgical performance remains a controversial topic

of debate in some quarters. Although Rachmaninoff him­self never indicated what his vision of the Vigil was, there is a substantial amount of indirect evidence that points to it as a work composed for a liturgical concert, rather than for use in a worship service.

First is the question of liturgical requirements. Whereas in his Liturgy, Rachmaninoff set all the neces­sary liturgical responses and litanies, the Vigil is con­spicuously devoid of such liturgical minutiae. To per­form Rachmaninoff's Vigil in a liturgical context, many other hymns would have to be added, drawn from set­tings by other composers. The differences in the level of musical complexity and sonority between Rachmani­noff's hymns and any such potential settings might re­sult in an aesthetic disharmony and lack of balance that would do a disservice both to Rachmaninoff's music and the liturgical worship service.

Various other issues of liturgical propriety have al­ready been mentioned, e. g., the requirement that No. 6, "Rejoice, 0 Virgin," be sung three times; the fact that No. 7, "The Six Psalms," is traditionally not sung as part of a normal Resurrectional Vigil; and the impossi­bility of having both No. 13 and 14 coexist within the same service.

Finally, there is the history of the work in perfor­mance. From the time of its premiere and to the present day, the Vigil has been heard almost exclusively on the concert stage. The tradition, begun sometime in the 1960s, of performing it in a service around the time of Rachmaninoff's birthday in one of the Moscow churches, must be looked upon as an idiosyncratic practice that has little to contribute to the real issues of Orthodox liturgical aesthetics and performance practice.126

The sacred musical works of Rachmaninoff stand as the highest achievement of the "golden age" of Rus­sian church choral art-the first two decades of the twen­tieth century. Since then they have assumed their right­ful place among the great masterpieces of world choral literature, the "standard repertoire" by which great choirs the world over measure their achievement. One can only express the hope that the present-day renaissance in Russia of those religious and cultural roots which in­spired Rachmaninoff to write his sacred choral works will lead to the creation of new choral compositions that will stand as worthy successors to Rachmaninoff's legacy.

Notes

1See V. Morosan, Choral Performance in Pre-Revolution­

ary Russia, Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1986, esp. ch. 3.

2In 1903 Kastalsky presented Rachmaninoff with a scoreof his arrangement "So svfadmi upok6y" ... "Sam Yedin yesi Bezsmertni"y'' [With the Saints give rest ... Thou alone art Immortal] with the following inscription: "To the most highly esteemed Sergei Vasil'yevich Rachmaninoff from A. Kastalsky to remind him that in this wide world exists a realm which patiently, but insistently awaits Rachmaninoff's inspiration. 11 November 1903." (Cited in S. Rakhmaninov, Literaturnoe

nasledie [The literary heritage], Vol. 2, Z. A. Apetian, com­piler and editor, Commentary to Letter 417, p. 377.)

3See, e.g., Rachmaninoff's letters to Mikhail Slonov, dated 13 June and 13 July, 1910. Literaturnoe, v. 2, pp. 12-13, 16-17.

4See, e.g., Rachmaninoff's letters to Alexander Kastalsky, dated 19 June and 6 July, 30 July, and 22 August, 1910. Litera­

turnoe, v. 2, pp. 14-15, 18, 22-23.

5Interestingly enough, during World War I, Rachmaninoff had evidently been promised a church precentor's post, which would have exempted him from military service. See Rachmaninoff's letter to A. Goldenweiser, 9 August, 1915. Literaturnoe, v. 2, p. 82.

6The details ofBakhmetev's suit againstJurgenson and its resolu­tion are discussed in Morosan, Choral Pe,formance, p. 88 ff.

7The first published edition appeared in S. Rakhmaninov, Tri

khora bez soprovozhdeniya, partitura i perelozheniye dlia forte­piano [Three unaccompanied choruses, score and piano reduc­tion], I. Iordan and G. Kirkor, editors. Moscow: Muzyka, 1972. The other two choruses in the collection, also previously unpub­lished, are a six-voice contrapuntal motet on the Latin text "Deus

meus," written in 1891 to fulfill a class requirement at the Moscow Conservatory, and the "Chorus of Spirits" intended for an unreal­ized symphonic poem entitled "Don Juan."

8See V. Morosan, Choral Performance, Table 3.4, p. 109.

9This Latin psalm text, which is not used in the Orthodoxliturgy, may have been assigned by the conservatory faculty. Rachmaninoff himself was very unsatisfied with this work. In a letter to N. D. Skalon, dated 10 January 1891, he wrote: "My choral piece is to be performed in February at a student recital and I will be conducting. To be truthful, I really don't want to perform such trash. I do not like this piece." (S. Rakhmaninov, Pis'ma

[Letters], Moscow: Muzgiz, 1955; p. 37. ) On the other hand, his professors at the Conservatory gave him the highest mark of "5," and the Director of the Conservatory V. I. Safonov wrote on the

autograph: "To be performed in the choral class." It is not clear, however, whether the performance actually took place, since the listings of the public concerts by Conservatory students for that year contain no mention of Rachmaninoff's piece.

10The Moscow Synodal Choir made history when, in 1895, it presented a series of Historical Concerts of Russian Church Music, reviving works by Vasily Titov, Nikolai Bavi"kin, and several anonymous Russian Baroque composers for the first time in more than a century. But these concerts took place a year-and­a-half after Rachmaninoff wrote his concerto.

llThe Feast of the Dormition (falling-asleep) of the Mother of God, celebrated on August 15, is one of the most revered feasts in the Russian Orthodox Church; it may well be that the celebration of this feast that particular summer inspired the young composer to choose a text from the festal service.

12A discussion of the system of Eight Tones may be found inJohann von Gardner, Russian Church Singing, Vol. 1, Orthodox

Worship and Hymnography, transl. by V. Morosan. Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980, pp. 58-61.

13 At the time Rachmaninoff wrote his concerto, Vedel' s works were not published, but were very well-known in the repertoire of church choirs. It is entirely conceivable that Rachmaninoff knew Vedel' s composition. While there are no obvious parallels, certain aspects of Vedel' s work are subtly echoed in Rachmaninoff's, e.g., extensive duets of voices in parallel thirds and sixths, thedoubling of divided treble and men's voices to yield a six-parttexture, long ornamental melismas. Rachmaninoff's division ofthe text into three movements is the same as Vedel' s, as are the tempi and moods of the three movements. Finally, Rachmaninoff's fugato theme of the second movement is quite similar to Vedel' s theme ( also a fugato) in the third movement. (Vedel' s concerto, edited by Mikhail Gol'tison, was published in the early 1900s as a musical supplement to the journal Muzyka i penie.)

14A literal English translation of the text reads as follows: "[The] in prayers ever-vigilant Mother of God, and in interces­sions an unceasing hope, the tomb and death did not hold, for [as] of the Life the Mother, to life did translate [the One who] dwelt in [her] womb ever-virginal." (A poetic translation appears on the first page of the music.)

15This "cadenza" might indeed have been unique in Russian sacred music were it not for the existence of similar melodic elaborations, called "litsa" and "fit!'' in the ancient znamenny chant. For example, the znamenny chant version of the hymn "Tefie poyem" (We Hymn Thee) ends with a melisma that bears some intonational resemblance to Rachmaninoff's (See Ex­ample 1). The resemblance might be dismissed as purely coinci­dental, except that Rachmaninoff had attended Smolensky's

Example 1

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F F F II

(9 j F

Cl

F j

FCJ

F F F e

t- Inash.

Harn.

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e e IUI

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lectures in chant at the Conservatory. As Rachmaninoff would demonstrate in his later works, he had an uncanny ability to invent chant-like melodies, even though he was not, so to speak, "steeped" in the idiom of church music.

16S. Kruglikov, "Dukhovnyi kontsert v Sinodal'nom uchilishche" [A sacred concert at the Synodal School], Artist 1(1894):177.

17Rachmaninoff to A. M. Kerzin. 15 April 1906. S. Rakhma­ninov, Pis 'ma [Letters], p. 268.

18Rachmaninoff to S. V. Smolensky, 16 March 1894. Cited inBarrie Martyn, Rachmaninoff. Composer, Pianist, Conductor. Brookfield, Vermont: Gower Publishing Company, 1990; p. 81.

19Rachmaninoff to Smolensky, 18 March 1895. The concert in question was most likely the one held on 20 March 1895, the third in a series of historical concerts presented by the Moscow Synodal Choir. The program featured polyphonic arrangements of early chants by Turchaninov, Potulov, Weichenthal, Arnold, Tchaikov­sky, as well as original compositions by Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky.

20Rachmaninoff to Smolensky, 12 June 1896. Cited in Martyn, p. 83.

21/bid.

22A historical discussion of cyclical settings of the Divine Liturgy is found in the introductory essay to the volume Peter Tchaikovsky, The Complete Sacred Choral Works, Monuments of Russian Sacred Music, ser. II (Madison, Connecticut: Musica Russica, 1994 ).

23Published privately by the composer. Printed by G. Shmidt of St. Petersburg. Censor's date: 12 March 1891. The designation "memorial" refers to the Orthodox Church practice of commemo­rating the departed on several designated Saturdays of the liturgi­cal year; it was also the practice in some regions to serve a Divine Liturgy prior to the Burial service. The structure of this Liturgy is virtually identical to the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom that would be served on a typical Sunday: the only changeable "prop­ers" are the Troparion and Kontakion, the Prokeimenon and "Alleluia," and the Communion Hymn. Of these, Arkhangelsky included the Kontakion "So sviadmi upok6y" [With the Saints give rest] and the Communion Hymn "Blazheni, yazhe izbral" [Blessed are they, whom Thou hast chosen].

24For a detailed analysis of the structure of Tchaikovsky's Liturgy, see Tchaikovsky, The Complete Sacred Choral Works.

25Published by P. Jurgenson of Moscow. One discounts publi­cations of chant harmonizations by composers such as Potulov and Arkhangelsky, who supplied cycles of unison chants with formulaic textbook0type harmony in four parts. In 1884 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov published eight pieces from the Divine Liturgy ( opus 22), which included two settings of the Cherubic Hymn, and one setting each of the Creed, A Mercy of peace, We hymn Thee, It is truly fitting, the Lord's Prayer, and Praise the Lord from the heavens.

26This work contained a complete composed setting of the Bea-

titudes (the Third Antiphon) set for alternating right and left choirs. 27Writing to Vladimir Rebikov on 6 October 1910, after having

received the Liturgy in its final revision, Kastalsky says: "Rach­maninoff has written an entire Liturgy-we are learning it­which is a significant event in the musical world. The piece itself is generally quite attractive, although the style is a bit on the motley side." (Kastalsky to Rebikov, cited in n. 2 to Letter 414, Literaturnoe, v. 2., p. 376.)

28Rachmaninoff to N. S. Morozov, 31 July 1910, Literaturnoe, V. 2; p.19.

29Rachmaninoff uses the archaic expression "Konets i Bogu slava," which scribes sometimes wrote at the end of liturgical manuscripts in earlier days. Rachmaninoff's MS is found in the State Glinka Museum of Musical Culture in Moscow (fond 18, No. 67).

300n 6 March 1911, Kastalsky wrote to Alexander Zatayevich that the Liturgy "was not yet published" (see Literaturnoe, v. 2, note to Letter 414, p. 376).

31Most likely, Vladimir Derzhanovsky (1881-1942), who wrote for a number of Moscow musical periodicals in the 191 Os under the pseudonym "D."

32"D." [Untitled review], Khorovoe i regentskoe delo 12 (1910): 310-11.

33***. [Untitled review], Khorovoe i regentskoe delo 3 (1911): 13-14.

34M. Lisitsyn, "Velikopostnye dukhovnye kontserty" [Lentensacred concerts], Muzyka i penie 7( 1911): 1-2.

35"It is unfortunate that the conductor (Mr. Danilin) chose to strongly accent the beginnings of 'Ghospodi pomiluy' [Lord, have mercy]. Evidently, he wished to create the effect of striking bells. He was guilty of the same technique elsewhere, e.g., at the beginning of 'Slava ... Yedinorodni"y' [Glory ... Only begotten]" (Ibid., p. 2).

36/bid.

37In Rachmaninoff's letter to Slonov, dated 13 June 1910, he quotes the instructions found in his prayer book and refers to Tchaikovsky's having omitted the antiphons from his setting of the Liturgy (Literaturnoe, pp. 12-13).

380nly two Russian composers, Pavel Chesnokov in his opuses 37 and 41 and Alexandre Gretchaninoff in his Liturgia domestica, opus 79, actually wrote out the deacon's parts in addition to the choral litany responses. The practice, however, was regarded as controversial, since it turned even the simple prayerful moments of the Liturgy into musical showpieces.

390n this point Rachmaninoff seems to be quite specific: only in No. 7, the Augmented Litany, he instructs that the final notes of the choir under the fermata be held during the deacon's petitions. The effect produced, while not common in the Russian Church, is not unlike the Byzantine practice of a chanter singing over a sustained drone (ison).

40With the exception, in the Russian tradition, of the following great feasts: Palm Sunday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, the Elevation of the Cross, the Nativity of Christ, the Theophany (Baptism of Christ), and Transfiguration, which have their own special psalm texts prescribed. In the Greek tradition, however, there are many more days on which the texts of the antiphons are varied. As for the common Sunday texts, the Russian practice diverged at some point in history from the Greek. The Greek books prescribe Psalm 91 [92] with the refrain "Through the prayers of the Theotokos, 0 Savior, save us" for the First Antiphon; Psalm 92 [93] with the refrain "O Son of God, who art risen from the dead,save us who sing to Thee: 'Alleluia'" for the Second Antiphon;and Psalm 94 [95] with the same refrain for the Third Antiphon.The Russian practice is to use the so-called Psalms of Typika-102 [103], 145 [146]-and the Beatitudes or "Commandments ofBlessedness" (Matt. 5:3-12 and Luke 23:42) as the first, second,and third antiphons.

41This melody, which is also used for the hymn "Spasi, Gh6spo­di, lfudi Tvoya" [0 Lord, save Thy people], is best known to musicians by its having been used in Tchaikovsky's 1812 Over­

ture.

42Prior to Rachmaninoff, only Arkhangelsky, Gretchaninoff,and Ippolitov-Ivanov had composed new music for the First Antiphon in their settings of the Divine Liturgy.

43Rachmaninoff to Mikhail Slonov, 13 June 1910, Literaturnoe,

v. 2, pp. 12-13. Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 19 June 1910. Ibid.,

pp. 14-15. Kastalsky's letters to Rachmaninoff with the specificcomments about the Liturgy have not survived, and we can onlysurmise their content based on Rachmaninoff's replies to them.

44Rachmaninoff, however, does allude to Kastalsky' s responses in a letter written to Slonov on 13 July 1910, upon the latter's return to Moscow: "Between you and Kastalsky there are some differences .... Whereas you write that 'antiphon' means 'sounding before,' Kastalsky says that it means singing by [alternating] choirs .... Which one of you is correct, I do not presume to judge (I suspect it is you!), but since Kastalsky's letter arrived first, I utilized his suggestions, i.e., I wrote the 'antiphons' for [alternat­ing] choirs (at times even joining them, which seems a bit risky to me) .... " (Ibid., pp. 16-17.)

45Yu. Keldysh, Rakhmaninov i ego vremia [Rachmaninoff and his times], Moscow: Muzyka, 1973; p. 385 fn.

46In this verse Rachmaninoff made a slight textual error, which actually escaped the attention of the censors: the word "milosti:fii" [with mercies] he renders in the singular-"milostYfiiu."

47See n. 40 above.

480riginally, the entire troparion may have been used as a refrain to the psalms verses, although it is difficult to establish when this practice fell from use. The fact that in some chant books this hymn appears in a very simple formulaic recitative in Tone 2, without any melodic elaboration, suggests that it may once have been sung as a refrain by the entire assembly. In the Byzantine practice, however, a much shorter refrain is used: "O Son of God, who art risen from the dead, save us who sing to Thee: 'Alleluia.'" (See also n. 57 below.)

49Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 19 June 1910. Literaturnoe, v. 2, p. 14.

50Jbid.

51Indeed, according to some ancient uses, such as that of the Dormition Cathedral in the Kremlin (where the Moscow Synodal Choir sang), the Beatitudes were not sung as the Third Antiphon. Elsewhere, the same practice prevailed as for the First Antiphon -singing the verses, perhaps alternately between two choirs, tothe "Greek" Chant melody in Tone 1.

52Kliros, from the Greek word for clergy, was the ecclesiastical term for "choir" and the places to the right and left of the iconostasis, where the singers and non-celebrating clergy tradi­tionally stood.

53Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 6 July 1910. Literaturnoe, v. 2, p. 15.

54Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 22 August 1910. Ibid., p. 22.

550f the two earlier complete settings of this hymn, by Semyon Panchenko (see No. 64 in One Thousand Years of Russian Church

Music, V. Morosan, ed., Monuments of Russian Sacred Music, ser. I, vol. 1 [Washington: Musica Russica, 1991], pp. 517-524) and Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, the first, written for a single choir, may be regarded as through-composed. The latter is written for two choirs, but the music consists of only two phrases, which alternate between the right and left choirs.

560bviously, the effect would depend to a great extent on the spatial arrangement and acoustics of the performance space. In more ancient Russian churches and cathedrals, the singers stood on slightly elevated platforms to the right and left of the icon screen (iconostasis). Originally, however, these places were meant to accommodate only small groups of five to ten singers; they were certainly inadequate for choirs of twenty, thirty, or more, which arose during the nineteenth century. Churches built in the eigh­teenth century or later often had upper-tier balconies or galleries, which came to be used as choir lofts. Usually these were at the rear of the church, allowing for only a single choir. More rarely, they were located on the right and left sides, allowing for two spatially separated choirs. But whereas two separate choirs on ground level could come together in the center of the church (and in monastic practice actually did so for prescribed hymns termed katabasia' s), two choirs separated in upper-level balconies could not. Hence during the service they only sang alternately.

During concert performances the singers of the Moscow Synodal Choir stood not in sections but in a mixed arrangement: the basses alternated with the tenors and the boy descants with the boy altos; it is not known, however, whether any attempt was made to separate the two choirs spatially during performances ofRachmani­noff' s Liturgy.

570n ordinary Sundays. On weekdays the text of the refrain changes to "Who art wonderful in Thy saints ... " and on feasts of the Mother of God, to "[save us] through the prayers of the Theotokos .... " In a bow to liturgical accuracy, Rachmaninoff provided all three variants. In Russian practice, however, the connection between the refrains of the antiphons and the Entrance Hymn is largely lost; it is preserved only at hierarchal Divine

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Liturgies of certain great feasts.

58Lisitsyn, "Velikopostnye," p. 2.

59The only mention of this hymn in Rachmaninoff's correspon­dence is in a postscriptum: "I've remembered one more question: on what syllable does the stress fall in the word[s] 'Priidite, poklofiimsfa' et seq.? I have written: 'Pfifdite.' But is this cor­rect?" (Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 19 June 1910. Ibid., p. 15.) Undoubtedly, Kastalsky pointed out that this stress was not correct, since in Rachmaninoff's final version the stress is placed correctly: "Priidite."

600n Sundays the hymns are taken from the Resurrectional Octoechos, a cycle of resurrectional hymns that repeats every eight weeks. In addition, hymns proper to the feast or saint of the day may be added, as well as hymns to the patron of the particular church. In the practice of the Russian Church over the last two hundred years these hymns were normally sung to formulaic pattern melodies, identified as eight "Tones," rendered in simple four-part harmony ( or six- to eight-part, with doublings). The only composer who included new arrangements for all eight variable resurrectional troparia as part of a complete liturgical cycle was Tchaikovsky in his All-Night Vigil, opus 52. Other composers, most notably Pavel Chesnokov, published their own arrangements of these variable hymns as separate opuses.

61Rachmaninoff asked Kastalsky and Slonov about another set of variable hymns, the "Prokeimena"-individual psalm verses performed responsorially as a prelude to the reading of the Epistle. He wrote to Kastalsky: "After 'SvfatYy B6zhe' it says [in my prayer book]: 'Deacon: Let us be attentive. Priest: Peace be to all. Deacon: Wisdom. Reader: The prokeimenon, from a Psalm of David. Choir sings the prokeimenon.' What, then, is this? There are no words given! Tchaikovsky also does not have this. Is it necessary to set this? And what are the words? And, again, what does the word 'prokeimenon' mean?" (Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 19 June 1910. Ibid., pp. 14-15). Later, in a letter to Slonov, Rachmaninoff wrote: "I have let the 'prokeimenon' slip out of my mind entirely."

62Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 22 August 1910. Ibid., p. 22.

63See n. 61 above.

64In a concert performance it would be appropriate to omit these responses altogether.

65In fact, the reading from Scripture was historically followed by the homily, a tradition that is being restored today in many Orthodox parishes. Elsewhere, the homily is still delivered at the end of the Eucharist.

66Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 22 August 1910. Literaturnoe,

V. 2, p. 22.

67Lisitsyn, "Velikopostnye," p . 1.

68In Russian usage, the word khoral is used in reference to both Lutheran chorales and Gregorian chants. Rachmaninoff does not identify more precisely the melody he used.

69Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 22 August 1910. Literaturnoe,

V. 2, p. 22.

70lbid., p. 22. The point of the last rebuttal is not clear. The Liturgy text calls for only three repetitions of the word "Svfat" [Holy] (mm. 34 ff.), and that is precisely the number in Rach­maninoff's final version. It would seem odd for Kastalsky to suggest that the number of repetitions be increased to six or more!

71As Paul Meyendorff and others have pointed out, there is awell-documented, ancient tradition of reading these prayers audi­bly in their entirety. Indeed, this tradition is being restored in many Orthodox parishes in America and elsewhere in the world.

72The practice of humming, which de facto transforms the human voice into a musical instrument deprived of reasoned speech, runs counter to the Orthodox tradition which forbids musical instruments of all types from being used in the liturgy. In his All-Night Vigil, Rachmaninoff made even more extensive (and non-optional) use of humming as a coloristic device. During the height of anti-religious repression in the Soviet period, Rachma­ninoff's "Tebe poyem" stripped of all text, was performed under the title "Quiet melody."

73Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 22 August 1910. Literaturnoe,

V. 2, p. 22.

74Keldysh, Rakhmaninov, p. 385.

75Martyn, Rachmaninoff, p. 222.

76A. Trubnikova, "Sergei Rakhmaninov," in Vospominaniia o

Rakhmaninove [Reminiscences of Rachmaninoff], vol. I (Mos­cow: Muzyka, 1988) p. 133.

77Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 6 July 1910. Literaturnoe, v. 2, p. 15.

78Thus, regarding one passage in the Cherubic Hymn he writes:"In the Cherubic Hymn I consider the doubling of the basses ( on "trisvfataya pesfi" [mm. 23-26]) highly undesirable." (Ibid.)

79Rachmaninoff to Kastalsky, 22 August 1910. Ibid., pp. 22-23.

80A. N[ikolsk]ii, [Untitled article], Khorovoye i regentskoye

de/09(1911).

81Martyn, Rachmaninoff, p. 218.

82B. V. Asaf'ev, "S. V. Rakhmaninov," in Vospominaniia,

p. 394.

831bid. Asaf'ev pointedly uses the phrase "o mire rsego infra," which is a direct quotation from the third petition of the Great Litany in the Orthodox liturgy.

84Cited in S. A. Satina, "Zapiska o Rakhmaninove" [A note about Rachmaninoff], in Vospominaniia, v. 1, n. 104, pp. 469-70.

85Subsequent performances took place on 12 and 27 March, and 3 and 9 April 1915. A. P. Smirnov, "«Vsenoshchnaya»" f"The All-Night Vigil"], in Vospominaniia, v. I, pp. 440-1.

s6A. Kastalsky, '"Vsenoshchnoe bdenie' S. Rakhmaninova"[S. Rachmaninoff's "All-Night Vigil"], Russkoe slovo 7 March 1915. Cited in Keldysh, Rakhmaninov, p. 399.

S7Florestan [V. Derzhanovsky], '"Vsenoshchnaia' S. Rakhma­ninova" [S. Rachmaninoff's "All-Night Vigil"], Utro Rossii

11 March 1915. Cited in Keldysh, Rakhmaninov, p. 399.

ssE. N. "'Vsenoshchnaia' S. V. Rakhmaninova v ispolneniiSinodal'nogo khora" [S. V. Rachmaninoff's "All-Night Vigil" in performance by the Synodal Choir], Moskovskie vedomosti

11 March 1915. Cited in Keldysh, Rakhmaninov, p. 400.

s9M. Ippolitov-Ivanov, lzbrannye molitvosloviia iz Vsenoshch­

nogo Bdeniia [Selected prayers from the All-Night Vigil], opus 43, Moscow: P. Yurgenson, (1907].

I. Prednachinatelni:y psal6m [The Introductory Psalm]2. "Gh6spodi, poiii.fluy" i dr. m0Iitvosl6viya ["Lord,

have mercy" and other prayer responses3. Blazhen muzh [Blessed is the man]4. Ghospodi, vozzvah [Lord, I call]5. Svete tfl:!iy [Gladsome Light]6. Bogor6ditse Devo, raduysfa [Rejoice, 0 Virgin]7. Bvaiite fiii.fa Ghospodne [Praise the name of the

Lord]8. Stepenna ["Ot yunosti moyeya"] [Gradual antiphon

("From my youth")]9. Pesnopeniya po Yevangelii [Voskreseniye Brist6vo

vfdevshe] [Post-Gospel hymns ("Having beheld theResurrection of Christ")]

10. Svfat Ghosp6d Bog nash [Holy is the Lord, our God]11. V eifkoye slavosloviye [The Great Doxology]12. Vzbrannoy voyev6de [To Thee, 0 victorious Leader]

90S. Panchenko, Penie na Vsenoshchnoi [Hymns of the All-Night Vigil], opus 45, Moscow: P. Yurgenson, [1908].

1. Pi'ednachinateini:y psalom [The Introductory Psalm] -Greek Chant

2. Blazhen muzh [Blessed is the man] - Znamenny Chant3. Svete tfl:!iy [Gladsome Light] - Kievan Chant4. Nine otpushchayeshi: [Lord, now lettest Thou] - Kievan

Chant5. Bogor6ditse Devo, raduysfa [Rejoice, 0 Virgin] -

Kievan Chant;Budi fiii.fa Ghosp6dne [Blessed be thename of the Lord]

6. Bvaiite fiii.fa Ghospodne [Praise the name of theLord] - Abbreviated Znamenny Chant

7. Voski'esni:ye tropai'f ["Blagosloven yesf, Gh6spodi"][Resurrectional troparia ("Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord")]- Kievan Chant

8. Ot yunosti moyeya [From my youth] - Greek Chant9. Voskreseiiiye Brist6vo vfdevshe i za nim pesnopeniya

[Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ and follow­ing hymns] - Kievan Chant

10. Veifchit dusha [My soul magnifies the Lord] -Znamenny Chant

11. V eifkoye slavosloviye [The Great Doxology] -Znamenny Chant

12. Vzbrannoy voyev6de i okonchaniye chasa pervogo[To Thee, 0 victorious Leader and the conclusion of First Hour] - Kievan Chant

91 A. Niko!' skii, Neizmeniaemye pesnopeniia iz Vsenoshchnogo

bdeniia [Unchanging Hymns from the All-Night Vigil], opus 26, Moscow: P. Yurgenson, (1909].

1. Blagoslovf, dushe moya, Ghospoda [Bless the Lord, 0my soul]

2. Blazhen muzh [Blessed is the man]3. Svete tfhiy [Gladsome Light]4. Nine otpushchayeshi: [Lord, now lettest Thou]5. Bvaiite fiii.fa Ghospodne [Praise the name of the

Lord]6. Blagosloven yesf, Ghospodi [Blessed art Thou, 0

Lord] - Greek Chant7. Ot yunosti moyeya [From my youth]8. Veifkoye slavosloviye [The Great Doxology] -

(Znamenny Chant ossia)

9. Vzbrannoy voyev6de [To Thee, 0 victorious Leader]

92A. Grechaninov, Vsenoshchnoe bdenie [All-Night Vigil],opus 59, Moscow: P. Yurgenson, (1912].

1. Blagoslovf, dushe moya, Ghospoda [Bless the Lord, 0my soul]

2. Blazhen muzh [Blessed is the man]3. Svete tfhiy [Gladsome Light]4. Bogor6ditse Devo, raduysi"a [Rejoice, 0 Virgin]5. Bvaiite fiii.fa Ghosp6dne [Praise the name of the

Lord]6. Voski'esni:ye tropai'i ["Blagosloven yesf, Gh6spodi"]

[Resurrectional troparia ("Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord")]7. Ot yunosti moyeya [From my youth]8. Voski'eseniye Bi'ist6vo videvshe [Having beheld the

Resurrection of Christ]9. Veifkoye slavosloviye [The Great Doxology] -

(Znamenny Chant ossia)

10. Vzbrannoy voyev6de [To Thee, 0 victorious Leader]

93P. Chesnokov, Vsenoshchnaia [All-Night Vigil], opus 21.Moscow: P. Yurgenson, (1909].

1. Blagoslovi, dushe moya, Ghospoda [Bless the Lord, 0my soul] (opus 11, No. 1)

2. Veifkaya yekteniya [Great Litany]3. Blazhen muzh [Blessed is the man] - Greek Chant

(opus 11, No. 2)4. Malaya yekteniya [Little Litany]5. Svete tihiy [Gladsome Light] (opus 11, no. 3) 6. Yekteniya sugubaya [Augmented Litany]7. Bogor6ditse Devo, raduysfa [Rejoice, 0 Virgin] -

Greek Chant ; Budi iiii.fa Ghospodne [Blessed be thename of the Lord]

8. Veifkaya yekteniya [Great Litany]9. Kafizmi: [Refrains at the Kathismata]10. Malaya yekteniya [Little Litany]11. Bvaiite iiii.fa Ghosp6dne [Praise the name of the

Lord] - [Abbreviated] Znamenny Chant ( opus 11,No. 5)

12. Tropai'f voskresn·i ["Blagosloven yesf, Ghospodi"] [Res­urrectional troparia ("Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord")] - GreekChant (opus 3, No. 3)

13. Malaya yekteniya [Little Litany]14. Pei'ed chteniyem Yevangeliya [i Voski'eseniye Bi'ist6vo

vfdevshe J [Responses before the reading of the Gospel andHaving beheld the Resurrection of Christ]

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15. "Gh6spodi, pomfluy" 12 raz [12-fold "Lord, have mercy"]16. Bogor6dichni"ye ismosY "Otverzu usta moya" [i Veifchit

dushii moyii Gh6spoda][Heirmoi to the Mother of God "I will open my mouth"(and "My soul magnifies the Lord"]

17. Malaya yeskteiiiya [Little Litany]18. I nYrie ... Preblagoslovenna yesi [Both now ... Thou art most

blessed]19. V eiikoye slavos16viye [The Great Doxology J - Znamenny

Chant (opus 3, No. 4)20. Otpustitelni"ye voski'esni"ye tropari "Dries spaseriiye" i

"Voskres iz gr6ba" [Resurrectional dismissal troparia"Today salvation" and "Thou didst rise from the tomb"] -Znamenny Chant

21. Yekteiiiya sugubaya [Augmented Litany]22. Utverdi, B6zhe [Confirm, 0 God]23. Vzbriinnoy voyev6de [To Thee, 0 victorious Leader]

As supplements, Chesnokov also provided two propers from the pre-Lenten and Lenten periods: Na rekiih vavil6nskih [By the rivers of Babylon] and Pokayiiriiya otverzi mi dveri [Open to me the doors of repentance] (opus 21a, Nos. 1 and 2).

Chesnokov' s likely motivation for compiling this Vigil was his immediately prior work on re-harmonizing most of the eight-Tone sets of "proper ordinaries," including "Lord, I call," the Theotokia Dogmatika (stichera sung in honor of the Mother of God), the Vesper and Matins prokeimena, and the resurrectional troparia at "The Lord is God" (published as opuses 17-20). Having created these new, complex settings of the propers, he needed a stylisti­cally coordinated setting of the Vigil ordinary. Chesnokov' s is the most comprehensive setting of the Vigil in the Russian Orthodox liturgical repertoire (although it still leaves open the question of some propers), but it is somewhat lacking in stylistic unity.

94P. Chesnokov, Vsenoshchnaia [All-Night Vigil], opus 44.Moscow: P. Yurgenson, [1913].

I. Blagoslovi, dushe moyii, Gh6spoda [Bless the Lord, 0 mysoul]

2. Blazhen muzh [Blessed is the man]3. Sveie tfhiy [Gladsome Light]4. N\"rie otpushchiiyeshi" [Lord, now lettest Thou]5. tivali1e imfa Ghosp6drie [Praise the name of the Lord]6. Tropari voskresni" ["Blagosloven yesi, Gh6spodi"J [Res­

urrectional troparia ("Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord")] - LittleZnamenny Chant

7. Ot yunosti moyeyii [From my youth] - Znamenny Chant8. Voskreseriiye tlrist6vo videvshe [Having beheld the Res-

urrection of Christ] - Kievan Chant9. Veiikoye slavosl6viye [The Great Doxology]

10. Vzbriinnoy voyev6de [To Thee, 0 victorious Leader] -Kievan Chant

95Tchaikovsky to S. Flerov. P. Chaikovskii, Polnoe sobranie

sochinenii [Complete collected works], vol. X, Moscow: 1966, pp. 130-1.

96For a more detailed analysis ofTchaikovsky'sAll-Night Vigil,

see the introductory essay in P. Tchaikovsky, The Complete

Sacred Choral Works, V. Morosan, ed.

97Keldysh, op. cit., p. 413. Keldysh intersperses his own obser­vations with those of Boris Asaf'ev (see B. V. Asaf'ev, "S. V.

Rakhmaninov," in Vospominaniia, p. 394.

98Keldysh, Rakhmaninov, p. 414.

99Rachmaninoff to Joseph Yasser, cited in J. S. Yasser, "Moe obshchenie s Rakhmaninovym" [My contacts with Rachmaninoff], Vospominaniia, n. 9, pp. 525-6.

100Rachmaninoff inaccurately implies, however, that the Church had any sort of rules for what hymns should or should not be set to chant melodies. In fact, of the six "original" hymns, four have melodies in the Obihod; only No. I, "Priidite, pokloiiimsfa" [Come, let us worship] and No. 7, "Shestopsiilmiye" [The (Verses before the) Six Psalms] have no chants in the Obihod. But the melodies commonly used in the early twentieth century for those hymns were generally of a simple, recitative character, which Rachmaninoff probably found to be stylistically at odds with the other more melodically developed chants he was using. The style of the overall work would not be compromised out of any "dog­matic" considerations.

101See n. 86 above.

102The few previous settings of the same znamenny chants used by Rachmaninoff include: "Blagosloven yesi, Gh6spodi" [Blessed art Thou, 0 Lord] by Tchaikovsky ( opus 52, No. 9), "Slavosl6viye veiikoye" [The Great Doxology J by Tchaikovsky ( opus 52, No. 16), Chesnokov (opus 3, No. 4), Panchenko (opus 45, No. 11), and Nikolsky (opus 26, No. 8), the troparia "Dries spaseriiye" [Today Salvation Has Come] and "Voskres iz gr6ba" [Thou Hast Risen from the Tomb] by Turchaninov (in a highly abbreviated and distorted form) and Chesnokov ( opus 21, No. 20). Considering the vast array of chant arrangements that Russian composers had produced by the year 1915, this is a strikingly small number.

103In some parishes a tradition developed to sing these verses in the context of the All-Night Vigils on Christmas Eve and Theophany Eve. This practice was somewhat limited, however, as evidenced by the scarcity of musical settings of this text; there are no chants for it in the standard chant books, and only a few settings in the composed, polyphonic repertoire: two or three anonymous set­tings from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries, one setting by Azeyev, two settings by Kastalsky, one by Chesnokov (unpublished), and one by Chmelev (also unpublished). Since Rachmaninoff clearly was not writing music for the Christmas Eve or Theophany Eve Vigil (which would have contained festal propers different from the "ordinary propers" of the Resurrec­tional Vigil), his inclusion of the so-called "Six Psalms" or "lesser doxology" (both terms are essentially incorrect; see n. 114 below) "Sliiva v v\"shriih B6gu" must be regarded as an innovation.

104As mentioned earlier, the call to worship is ordinarily sung by the priest alone or, in larger churches, by a choir of clergy, to a simple, recitative-style melody.

105It is interesting to note that, as A. P. Smirnov reports, from the very start three numbers were excluded from the first performance of the All-Night Vigil: Nos. 1, 13, and 14. Work on the piece began with the second movement, "Blagoslovi, dushe moyii, Gh6spoda," and continued in order of the numbers. The Synodal Choir appar­ently took the "Amen" at the beginning of No. 2, which, according to Smirnov, Danilin rendered with a crescendo. This small addi-

tion, says Smirnov, succeeded in immediately focusing the choir's attention on the conductor and making it responsive to his slightest interpretive gesture. (A. Smirnov, « Vsenoshchnaia», p. 445.)

While the omission of the first movement would violate Rachmaninoff's grand design, it explains the presence of two "Amens" in the score, where only one is called for liturgically. In a liturgical setting, for example, where Rachmaninoff's first movement might be altogether omitted as non-traditional, the Vigil would begin with the opening intonation and the choral "Amen" at the beginning of the second movement, after which the clergy would sing "Come, let us worship," and the choir would then immediately proceed with "Bless the Lord, 0 my soul."

Another possible explanation for the duplication is that Rachmaninoff, after composing an "Amen" before "Come, let us worship" as indicated in the service book, then proceeded literally to follow the chant book, in which "Bless the Lord, 0 my soul" is preceded by "Amen" (in actuality, the same "Amen" he had already set).

106It may be argued that wordless humming is reminiscent of the ison, the drone used in the Byzantine Orthodox tradition. The ison,

however, if it had ever been an element in Russian church perfor­mance practice, had not been used for several centuries. The effect sought after by Rachmaninoff certainly appears to be far removed from singing with ison.

107 At the height of Italian influence in Russian church music, virtually all liturgical texts were set in the form of solo arias, often adapted from Western European operas and oratorios, with the choral voices singing the orchestral parts.

108A. P. Smirnov recalls that "[in the course of the rehearsal, Rachmaninoff] asked that the solo part be sung not by the entire alto section, as had been prepared, but only by the firsts, and then, by the seconds. It should be mentioned that soloistic performance was generally not practiced in the Synodal Choir; solos were performed either by an entire section or a part of it, a stand (four or five singers), and in this instance the solo was being prepared by the entire section of altos, in view of the fact that the score allowed this type of juxtaposition. Rachmaninoff was not satisfied with this arrangement, and it came out that he was recommending that No. 2 be sung by the Bolshoi Theater diva 0. P. Pavlova, who had a wonderful mezzo-soprano. (I will note that for No. 5, "NYfie otpushchayeshi'," S. P. Yudin, a soloist from Zimin's Opera, had already been invited). When F. P. Stepanov [Procurator of the Moscow Synodal Chancery and Administrator of the Moscow Synodal Choir] found out about this suggestion, he remarked that perhaps the whole Vigil should be performed by the forces of the Bolshoi Theater. In the concerts the solo part was sung by the altos [of the chorus]" (A. Smirnov, «Vsenoshchnaia», p. 442).

109See n. 105 above.

110In Russian Orthodox liturgical music the Hebrew word "halleluyah" is sometimes rendered in four syllables and some­times in five. Although there is no definitive rule of thumb, it seems that most authentic chant melodies, as well as polyphonic works based on them, use predominantly the five-syllable version; freely composed works, beginning with the Baroque concerti of the late seventeenth century, most often use the four-syllable vers10n.

111Equal emphasis between a key and its relative major (or minor) is frequently found in both Russian Orthodox liturgical music and Russian music in general, to the point that it may be termed a stylistic trait.

112A. P. Smirnov relates that the guest soloist, tenor S. P. Yudin, sang in only the first two concerts in 1915; thereafter the solo parts were sung by the first stand offirst tenors (A. Smirnov, « Vsenoshch­

naia», p. 442-3).

113A. P. Smirnov writes: "The question naturally arises: Was [Rachmaninoff's] All-Night Vigil ever performed in the Dormition Cathedral [where the Synodal Choir regularly sang at divine services]? In the mid-1910s the major portion of the Synodal Choir's repertoire consisted of works by Kastalsky, Chesnokov, [Victor] Kalinnikov, Gretchaninoff, Shvedoff, and a few other composers, and at that time it seemed to us that the time for Rachmaninoff's Vigil had not yet arrived. We felt that num­ber 6,"Bogoroditse Devo," might be suitable for the Dormition Cathedral, but only once, on the eve of Dormition, did one kliros

[i.e., half the choir, standing on the right or left side of the Royal Doors] of the Synodal Choir sing the final number of the Vigil,

"Vzbrannoy voyevode" [To Thee, the Victorious Leader]. The performance bore no resemblance to the way it had sounded in concert, either in terms of sonority, or in terms of overall en­semble. (A. Smirnov, in A. Naumov, ed., Pamiati N. M. Danilina

[N. M. Danilin: in memoriam], Moscow: 1987, pp. 150-155). Smirnov' s comments notwithstanding, a three-fold performance

of "Bogoroditse Devo" in the course of an All-Night Vigil served on the eve of Rachmaninoff's birthday at the church of the "Joy of All the Sorrowful" in Moscow ( 1979), appeared highly unsatis­factory to this writer. Even at a very fast tempo it took an inordinate length of time, and the climactic buildup seemed to lose its impact the second and third time around.

114In Rachmaninoff's published score this movement ended up being entitled "Shestopsalmiye" [The Six Psalms]; but in the autograph it was originally entitled "Slavosloviye maloye" [The Lesser Doxology], apparently to distinguish it from the "Great Doxology," which begins with the same words (see discussion of No. 12 below]. Liturgically, neither designation is correct, inas­much as the verses in question do not actually belong to the six psalms that follow them; the designation "lesser doxology" could just as appropriately be used with reference to the prayer "Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen," which always concludes liturgical psalmody. Perhaps the most correct designation for this musical element of Matins is the one used by Kastalsky in his published settings: "Stihi pred Shestopsalmiyem" [Verses before the Six Psalms].

115Barrie Martyn's table given on pp. 254-55 of Rachmaninoff:

Composer, Pianist, Conductor, incorrectly identifies No. 7 as a znamenny chant, while labelling No. 12 an original melody. In fact No. 12 is based on a chant throughout, while No. 7 uses only the first phrase of that chant (which happens to have the same words), and then continues with original material.

116For more on this subject, see Edward V. Williams, The Bells

of Russia: History and Technology, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1985; and, by the same author, "Aural

lxxiii

lxxiv

Icons of Orthodoxy: The Sonic Typology of Russian Bells" in William C. Brumfield and Milos M. Velimirovic, eds. Christianity

and the Arts in Russia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 3-13.

117The text of this hymn comprises select verses from Psalms 134 [135] and 135 [136] (in Rachmaninoff's and most other Russian settings from this period, verses 1 and 21 from Psalm 134 and 1 and 26 from Psalm 135). The designation polyeleion refers to the manifold repetition of the phrase "for His mercy endures forever" in Psalm 135. In Greek it is also a subtle play on the words meaning "much oil" (i.e., "much light"), referring to the fact that all the lamps in the temple are lit at this point in the service.

118The uniqueness of Rachmaninoff s approach is vividly illus­trated by comparing his treatment of these texts with that of Tchaikovsky, who used the same Little znamenny chant melody in his Vigil, opus 52.

119Russian "Old Believers" or "Old Ritualists" refused to accept the updating of liturgical service books carried out by Patriarch Nikon in the 1650s. Simultaneously, they rejected many other innovations that came into the Russian Church and society at that time, among which was part-singing modelled upon Western European, Roman Catholic choral polyphony. After the mid­seventeenth century, in the official Russian Orthodox Church chants continued to be sung, but almost invariably in harmonized form; unison singing, on the other hand, came to be identified as a hallmark of the schismatic Old Ritualists.

12°Keldysh, Rakhmaninov, p. 419.

1211n an uncharacteristic departure (for this work) from theprescribed scriptural text, Rachmaninoff omits the verse "He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts."

122Yuri Keldysh's analysis of this movement vividly illustrates how the secular, anti-religious bias of the Soviet period often infiltrated musical scholarship. He characterizes the refrain as "luminous, lively ... in the character of folk celebratory songs of the carol type .... Beneath the layer of Christian dogmas and rituals, Rachmaninoff uncovers a deeper stratum of ancient pagan be­liefs .... " (Keldysh, Rakhmaninov, p. 417). From a traditional Orthodox Christian perspective, however, one can clearly per-

ceive in Rachmaninoff's vocal scoring a musical representation of the angelic choirs, a beatific heavenly vision similar to that depicted in movement No. 6.

123 According to A. Smirnov' s report, both Nos. 13 and 14 were omitted from the first performance (Smirnov, « Vsenoshchnaia»,

p. 441). This decision may have been made by Danilin simplybecause these two hymns were not among those commonly sungin concert performances of the All-Night Vigil; as was pointed outearlier, Rachmaninoff was the first composer to include thesehymns in a highly artistic musical setting of the Vigil. Previoussettings were quite simple and did not lend themselves to concertperformance.

124The composition of this text dates to an occasion in the year 620 A. D., when armies of Persians and Scythians (pagan ances­tors of the latter-day Russian Orthodox) laid siege to the imperial city of Constantinople. Badly outnumbered, the defenders of the city implored the Mother of God for deliverance, and through her intercessions, drove back the enemy. In grateful thanksgiving, the people gathered in the church of the Mother of God, and stood the whole night, singing to her a hymn of praise known as the "Akathist," during which it is not permitted to sit. In its original form, the text of the Kontakion reads" we Thy city, delivered from evil...," instead of "we Thy servants ... " (from the Synaxarion for the Saturday of the Fifth Week of Great Lent).

Today in the Orthodox Church, the service of the Akathist is sung on the eve of Saturday of the Fifth Week of Great Lent; but the Kontakion alone has become an ordinary hymn of First Hour, and is also the proper Kontakion for the feast of the Annunciation (March 25th).

125See n. 113 above.

126The choir of this church, named after the Icon of the Mother of God "The Joy of All the Sorrowful," on Bol'shaya Ordi'nka Street, under the direction of Nikolai Vasil'yevich Matveyev (1909-1992), was always somewhat of a showpiece during the Soviet Era. At a time when no performances of sacred music were allowed outside of church services, this choir was permitted to record, in the 1960s, a multi-disk album for distribution exclu­sively outside the USSR, ostensibly to demonstrate that sacred music was "alive and well" in the Soviet Union. Their church performances of Rachmaninoff s Vigil and Liturgy date from that same time period.

Bo3rJiaCbI cB.sn:QeHHOCJIY)KHTeJieft Ha BceHOI:QHOM 6,:a;eHHH

JIPHMElJ.AHHE PE/1,AKTOPA: qT06br ycTaHOBHTb TOHaJibHOCTb JJ:O-Ma2KOP B HaqaJie «BceHOUjHOZO 6iJeHU5l», rrepBoe ,,AMHHb" CJie)];yeT rrpe)];BapHTb HH2KecJie)];yIOIIIHMH B03rJiacaMH )];b5fKOHa H CB5fIIIeHHHKa.

DEACON: (Bass),---------- 3 --, ,- 3 -----,

Ekphonetic Chants (Exclamations)

for the All-Night Vigil

EDITOR'S NOTE: In order to establish the tonality of C major at the start of the All-Night Vigil, the first "Amen" should be preceded by the following exclama­tions of the deacon and priest.*)

J � �: I J J J

...

i' J J II Bia - go - slo -BJia - ro - CJIO -

PRIEST: (Tenor)

�, D r D rSia - va svfa - 'fey, CJia-Ba CB5f -Tell.,

�, ,-- 3 ------i

r [ CJ ·'·gda, Ill - iie

rp;a, Hbl - He H

vi, via df Bil, BJia - )];bl

r r r r EJ ye-di-no-sushch- iiey, e-AH-HO - cyrrr - Hell.,

,-3 ---,

l3 j A

ko. KO.

r� r r EJ zh1- vo-tvo- rfa-shchey 2KH-BO-TBO -p5r - rrreft

,--------- 3 ------,

'

j ) J F

pi'i - sno, i VO ve ki ve - kov. IIPH - CHO, H BO Be - Kil Be - KOB.

EJ D iie - raz - de I - iiey Troy - tse, fse -

rr He-pa3-p;em-Herr Tporr-rre, Bee-

11

*lTEXT TRANSLATION: "Bless master." "Glory to the Holy, Consubstantial, Life-Creating, and Undivided Trinity, now andever, and unto ages of ages."

343