Alexander Gretchaninov – Vespers

Holst Singers
Stephen Layton

Classic CD – Michael Quinn
September 1999

Stephen Layton’s Holst Singers treat the piece (legimately) as a concert work and bring to bear a light, beautifully blended vocal sound, concentrated and duly devotional , making much of the music’s long-breathed lines and resonant harmonies.

BBC Music Magazine – Claire Wrathall
September 1999

It is an expertly disciplined ensemble, and technically its musicianship is impeccable.

Guardian
11th June 1999

Three years before Rachmaninov wrote his Vespers, Gretchaninov, in 1912, wrote this mellifluous setting of the same Russian Orthodox texts – not so tough or austere, but offering equally rapt and dedicated choral writing, close in spirit to the music of modern composers such as Tavener and Pärt. Two years ago, on a disc called Ikon, the Holst Singers gave us a flavour of Gretchaninov's religious music, including the popular setting of the Creed. This seductive performance is both more ambitious and more beautiful still.

Choir & Organ
Numerous delights. The performance by the Holst Singers is stunningly good. This serene, delectable music is irresistible and so is its performance

Contemporary Review
This recording brings a sense of deep spiritual peace and will especially appeal to those who already know the beauties of the Russian liturgical tradition

The Scotsman
Great blocks of beautifully contructed sound are stunning in their apparent simplicity

Classic CD
Two highly attractive and unstuffy Russian liturgical works in attractive performances

Gramophone
Grechaninov's music has, in recent years, begun once more to be performed and recorded as it deserves. There are excellent recent discs available of several of his Liturgies (including the famous Liturgia Domestica), Masses, the oratorio The Seven Days of the Passion and now also his orchestral music. The All-Night Vigil is an outstanding achievement.

Like Rachmaninov's famous setting (more familiarly, though incorrectly, known as the 'Vespers'), it is a selection of texts from the services of Vespers and Matins celebrated as a Vigil, though in current parish practice this lasts rather less than an entire night. Grechaninov sets fewer texts: the total duration of the work is just over 47 minutes. Here we find the sustained chordal writing and slow-moving melodies oscillating around a few notes familiar from Rachmaninov, but Grechaninov has his own distinctive harmonic vocabulary, and his writing is much less text-driven.

Chant is an inspiration, but is also used in a different way from Rachmaninov: none is quoted in its entirety, the composer preferring instead to use fragments of various chants which are combined and juxtaposed with considerable freedom (it is not certain whether the work was intended for liturgical use or not). He is a master of texture: listen to the astonishing darkness of sound produced by the scoring for lower voices in Ot yunosti moyeya, for example. Overall there is a feeling of luminosity in the writing, however, as well as an undeniable grandeur, to which the exclusive use of brilliant major keys contributes greatly.

To round off the disc we are given three other liturgical works, including a dramatic setting of the Beatitudes (sung at the Divine Liturgy) with James Bowman as soloist ‚ hearing his voice in this context inevitably reminds one of his recording of this composer's Creed made many years ago for Decca. The Holst Singers under Stephen Layton are superb: they have a complete mastery of the style and the fine, rich choral timbre which the music demands. Very highly recommended.

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