Helios CDH55318, 77:39 [Distrib. by Harmonia mundi] ****
The Liturgy, according to Orthodox Church custom, involves an extended form of the Mass, here devoted to the particularly Russian chant style that eschews German and Italian influences. Composed in 1910, Rachmaninov’s setting of the St. John Chrysostom borrows from both the Moscow Synodal School and Tchaikovsky, along with the emphasis on a plainchant style advocated by Kastalsky. The modal character of the chants lends a distinctly “angular” quality to the vocal lines, shaped by the Deacon’s invocations and the various entries and harmonic developments of the responsories. The alternation of a cappella men’s and women’s voices, then their blending, keeps the musical mosaic fluid, constantly varied in color and texture, especially in the Third Antiphon, in which the high female voices find a ground in the obstinate bass tones of the men. That the unaccompanied voices can achieve a mighty and sweet harmony has ample testimony in the onrushes of sound in The Little Entrance, which describes Christ as he rises from the dead. In the Trisagion, the densely chromatic writing thins out for the touching Alleluia, potent in its diatonic simplicity. The Deacon’s voice, rapidly intoning the Have mercy and Again we pray, assumes a mesmeric function, a pedal over and under which the separate vocal choirs weave an harmonic web. The Cherubic Hymn, subtly subdividing the female and high tenor voices in striking, open chords, creates an exalted, aerial tapestry of tender, then explosive power, on a par with the more popular Sacred Vespers that Rachmaninov wrote in 1915 as his Op. 37. Its eerie, detached chords at the coda closely resemble moments in the Faure Requiem.
At the Litany of Supplication, we feel even more strongly the archaism of the vocal style, although musical scholars will have noted the many correspondences to Tchaikovsky’s equally subjective approach to the standard liturgy. The sustained, declamatory periods become even more detached and extended, almost as if we eavesdropped on a Buddhist temple. Connoisseurs of this 19-28 November 1993 inscription will gravitate often to the eight-part setting of The Lord’s Prayer, a wonderful study in graduated and inflected rhythmic pulse, whose melodic line tugs at and then recedes from the heartstrings. The swollen form of the melodic arch becomes almost sensual, a moment of Wagnerian ecstasy. Ensues On is Holy and the exquisite Communion Hymn, the later of which basks in its rhythmic thrusts on repeated Alleluias. For a rich, less monochromatic color line, try Blessed is he, whose palette illustrates our acceptance of the Holy Trinity as our salvation. Progressions from the long Hymn Praise at several points hint at Beethoven’s Op. 135 slow movement. Blessed be the Name of the Lord serves as a metrically active coda; another extended declamation from the Deacon ushers in the Dismissal. Just compare the stutter-step vocal line to the chants intoned in the movie Whale Rider to note how universal is this plaintively direct appeal to God.
–Gary Lemco
