![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Music geekery
I've been listening to the Rachmaninoff Vespers a lot in the past few days. I'm not exagerrating when I say it is one of the greatest works of choral music, if not the greatest. It has fifteen movements, and every one is my favorite. Each is a gem—after you finish listening to one, you want to immediately go back and listen again. But if you wait for the next movement to start, you can't help but be drawn on.
Rachmaninoff drew on the traditions of the Russian Orthodox church heavily for this piece, using different types of chant and Russian folk music. It's varied and some of the most deceptively simple yet stunning choral writing I've ever seen. In every movement there's a chord or a harmony that makes your jaw drop. The way he weaves the voices in and out of each other makes every line interesting.
It's also one of the most amazing to sing. Many writers of choral works are clearly more comfortable with orchestras and don't quite know what to do with the voice. Rachmaninoff wrings every nuance out of the voice. Our conductor pointed to a specific eight bar phrase and called it a primer on every technique of twentieth century choral writing.
What makes this even more poignant is that just two years after it premiered (in 1915), Rachmaninoff was forced to flee Russia with his family because of the revolution. His music was banned in Russia for years after. This is the last choral piece he ever wrote, and the last to draw on Russian sources. The Vespers is Rachmaninoff's love poem to his home country, bittersweet because it was written at the very end of the old Russia.
Rachmaninoff drew on the traditions of the Russian Orthodox church heavily for this piece, using different types of chant and Russian folk music. It's varied and some of the most deceptively simple yet stunning choral writing I've ever seen. In every movement there's a chord or a harmony that makes your jaw drop. The way he weaves the voices in and out of each other makes every line interesting.
It's also one of the most amazing to sing. Many writers of choral works are clearly more comfortable with orchestras and don't quite know what to do with the voice. Rachmaninoff wrings every nuance out of the voice. Our conductor pointed to a specific eight bar phrase and called it a primer on every technique of twentieth century choral writing.
What makes this even more poignant is that just two years after it premiered (in 1915), Rachmaninoff was forced to flee Russia with his family because of the revolution. His music was banned in Russia for years after. This is the last choral piece he ever wrote, and the last to draw on Russian sources. The Vespers is Rachmaninoff's love poem to his home country, bittersweet because it was written at the very end of the old Russia.