The release of this Anthology presents the aim to acquaint a broad range of listeners with the main highlights in the development of Russian sacred music. History spans ten centuries of existence of sacred music on Russian soil, and manifests from the very beginning the originality of its development at every stage.
The initial forms and chants of the early Russian musical tradition, adopted from the Byzantine Empire, formed themselves rather quickly into a special type of early Russian vocal art – the znamenny chant. Its name is derived from the Old Slavonic word “znamya” which means “sign” or “symbol” (in contemporary Russian it means “banner”). By means of these symbols (znamya or kryuki, meaning “hooks” or “curves”) the musical linear movement of the chants was fixated. The znamenny chant presented a form of monophonic chant and is performed in unison by male singers.
Notwithstanding the fact that the znamenny chant predominated in Russian church music during the course of six centuries (until the 17th century) it had been constantly subjected to influence of various trends and had undergone considerable changes. Thus, for example, in the mid 16th century, as a result of the appearance of school of Moscow singers and chanters, two independent trends of monody (monophonic) chant separated themselves from znamenny chant – the putevoy chant and the demestvenny chant. A reformation of the znamenny chant also took place in the subsequent 17th century, at a time when a crisis of the medieval worldview conditioned the implementation of reforms which also applied to the art of music, primarily, of course, of church music. It resulted in the beginning of the work of systematizing the chant and perfection of the means of their notation, due to which many of the znamenny chants were transcribed to the five-lined staff notation. In the process, the chant melodies became more complex and sophisticated, having been enriched by new variants of intonation. As a result of this, there appeared new chants and vocal styles, which at that time were likewise termed as “chants” – the Greek chant, the Kiev chant and the Bulgarian chant.
However, the “fresh influences” of the 17th century essentially meant the completion of the era of the znamenny chant. A powerful rival appeared beside it at that time – namely, choral singing in many voices, which expanded in a very short time span from two or three voice arrangements to magnificent choral concertos for twelve or more voices.
The subsequent fate of the znamenny chant revolved around the question of its homophonic and polyphonic harmonization. The first attempts at harmonizing were made by D. Bortnyansky, P. Turchaninov, A. Lvov and others. A special contribution was made by Pyotr Tchaikovsky by his “Liturgy,” which was written in the form of harmonization of early plainchants. Only at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries, due to the musical innovations of composer A. Kastalsky and the ideas of choral conductor and musicologist S. Smolensky a special style of arrangements of znamenny chants was found, combining the features of early Russian church music with those of Russian polyphonic folk songs. An entire school of Moscow composers was developed at that time, the artistic center of which was the Moscow Synodal College of Church Singing. It brought up several generations of musicians, teachers and composers, among which were A. Nikolsky and P. Chesnokov, A. Grechaninov and N. Golovanov, V. Kalinnikov and K. Shvedov. All of them had a close practical connection with the college’s main concert ensemble – the Synodal Choir, directed by Vassily Orlov, and following his death – by Nikolai Danilin. This choir had premiered a large quantity of Russian sacred compositions, including Rachmaninov’s “Liturgy” and “Vespers”.
At the same time, in St. Petersburg the mixed chorus organized by composer and choral conductor Alexander Arkhangelsky had numerous concert performances. In contrast to the Synodal Chorus, consisting of voices of men and young boys, Arkhangelsky’s chorus also included female voices – Arkhangelsky was the first to have replaced children’s voices of boys with female voices in the practice of church singing. For liturgical church service Arkhangelsky wrote two Liturgies, Vespers and several dozens of sacred choral pieces, distinguished for their remarkable melodic and lyrical warmth. The greatest amount of popularity was achieved by his concertos: “I Dread the Fearful Day”, “I Have Cried to the Lord with My Voice”, “Blessed Are Those Who Understand” and “Lord, Hear My Prayer”.
From the 19th century, along with arrangements of znamenny chant, the sphere of free composition was actively developed in Russian sacred music. However it was strictly regulated by the monopolizing activities of the oldest Russian chorus – the Court Vocal Choir (presently the St. Petersburg State Academic Capella Choir). Only its participants were allowed to compose works on liturgical and other sacred texts. The Court Choir had the right to publish and edit sacred choral compositions. At various periods of time such composers as M. Berezovsky, D. Bortnyansky, A. Lvov, M. Balakirev, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, M. Glinka and others worked together with the Court Choir.
A new phase opened with the appearance of sacred works by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. His first composition in the genre of sacred music the “Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom” (1878) became the reason of the judicial action of P. Jurgenson, the composer’s friend and publisher of his music, against N. Bakhmetev, the director of the Court Choir, who laid a ban on the publication of the work. Jurgenson won the lawsuit and the Court Choir’s monopoly was broken. As a result of the achieved liberty, the quantity of composers of church music increased considerably, including those from the choirmasters and priests. In addition, many composers, following the example of Tchaikovsky, turned to composing integral liturgical cycles.
A significant historical event in the sphere of music was the concert performance of the “Liturgy”: the practice of holding sacred concerts outside of the church was revived, and this served as a basis for different interpretations of church music at the end of the 20th century.
An ingenious musical realization was given to the sacred cycles the “Liturgy of St. john Chrysostom” (1910) and “Vespers” (1915) by the outstanding Russian composer, Sergei Rachmaninov. Likewise to Tchaikovsky, he filled his “Liturgy” with original musical themes, and when composing the “Vespers,” he turned to arranging the early chant melodies. In the latter work Rachmaninov was able to combine specimens of znamenny chant with original melodies which were close to the former in terms of thematicism. Both compositions, which were performed in an outstanding manner by the Synodal Chorus under the direction of Danilin, were met with great enthusiasm by audiences outside of the churches, but received rather coldly by the clergy. The evaluation of one of the Moscow priests, given to the “Liturgy,” is especially exemplary: “The music is indeed wonderful, even excessively beautiful, but it is difficult to pray to such music. It is not church music.” A lot of time was needed for the sacred cycles by Rachmaninov finally to be heard in Orthodox churches.
Rachmaninov’s “Vespers” presented a final summation of the lengthy history of the development of the znamenny chant. After several decades, its main principles were applied by contemporary composer, Rodion Shchedrin in his unique Russian choral Liturgy “The Sealed Angel” (1988). Shchedrin adopted separate elements of the main subject of Nikolai Leskov’s novelette – namely, the title, the image of the piper for the first number (“The Angel of the Lord”), and combined them with a set of liturgical texts. This resulted in an original choral composition, abundant in contemporary techniques of choral writing and sonorical effects. The world premiere of “The Sealed Angel” was first performed by the joint forces of two choral ensembles: the Moscow Chamber Chorus and the Academic Russian Chorus under the direction of Vladimir Minin.
…The genre of the choral concerto began to develop in Russian sacred music in the beginning of the 18th century, as a result of the introduction into singing practice of part singing, brought over to Moscow by singers from Kiev in the mid 17th century. In contrast to the monophonic plainchant, prevalent at that time, part singing introduced singing music in various voices, each type of singer following their own part (descant, alto, tenor and bass). The new style was quickly embraced and mastered by many composers, among which were Nikolai Bavykin, Vassily Titov and Nikolai Diletsky. А large amount of partesny music, including the so-called partesny concertos, distinguished by their extensive amount of voices (in separate instances reaching 24 and even 48 voices), their juxtapositions of tutti sections (with the entire chorus singing together) and separate groups of voices, as well as all manners of imitation of short melodies. An immense popularity was achieved by the form of the “Service to God” cycle, marked by a unity of tonality, harmony and intonation. It became the precursor to the church music cycles, the Vespers and the Liturgy, which were to appear later.
Since the end of the 18th century the choral concerto began undergoing the influence of the achievements of Western European music. A new trend appeared in the music of Maxim Berezovsky and especially Dmitri Bortnyansky, who had perfected their composition skills in Italy. The focus in composing choral concertos was geared on greater orderliness and symmetry in form, application of polyphonic techniques and highlighting contrasts of the three sections, which were characteristic for the concerto’s formal structure.
The second wave of development in the genre of the choral concerto could be discerned in the Russian music of the post-war years. The concerto was enriched by new semantic content, as the composers who turned to this genre were interested in both sacred and secular subject matter. A unique example of this new approach towards spirituality in music is presented by the Choral Concerto by Alfred Schnittke (1985) in four movements, set to the text of the Armenian monk, Grigor Narekatsi, who lived in the Middle Ages. In this composition Schnittke tried to convey the intense search of the restless human soul, a heartfelt and confidential conversation of the human being with God, perturbed worries and tranquility of the forgiven heart. The dramatic first movement of the concerto conveys the reverent worship of the humble soul that has turned to God and is ardently aspiring towards salvation.