Customer Reviews

Evening Star: The Rachmaninov Vespers

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an utterly magnificent recording - one of my all-time favorites. I have heard other renditions, but none come close to this particular interpretation. It is sung with such passion, soul, and intelligence that I'm sure that if he could hear it, Rachmaninov himself would be moved to tears.

The solemn heavenly beauty of the Russian Orthodox Saturday evening "All-Night Vigil" liturgy resonates off the walls of the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul in this magnificent rendering of Rachmaninoff's masterpiece. In particular, the 'Bogoroditse Dyevo' (Ave Maria) is achingly beautiful. A great performance of a truly great piece of music.

It's like the walls of a church begin to sing!

I bought this years ago with the Liturgy, also done by St. Petersburg, and became annoyed when they kept adjusting the tempo and words--faster, then slower. I couldn't concentrate on prayer or Scripture while listening, because they rushed through so much that should be sung slowly, with more attention to melody lines that needed to be brought to the listener's attention. They were singing so that the building's echo and other acoustics could be highlighted; as I listen more to this, the performance is for art's sake, not for the message. I've ordered a couple other versions recommended in some reviews (one is Polansky's); I've heard excerpts of the Liturgy on a CD by the Kyiv chamber choir which is so good I wish Kyiv would perform these compositions. Kyiv's choir brings out nuances that I never heard in the St. Petersburg version, because Kyiv sings slowly, with more attention to detail and no need to rush through it so much. Some of the sopranos in the St. Petersburg recordings sound like opera stars, not like choir members; they can be very distracting when they don't blend in very well.

The 1965 USSR recording conducted by Alexander Svechnikov completely captures the magnifience of the beauty in the russian litergical chant. In solists, choir and conducting, no others in my collection compare with the 1965. Read my review of this one and others on the Polyansky/Moscow Classics label.
The 1965 on Chant Du Monde, sadly long out of print.