All-night Vigil (Vespers) - Rachmaninov
On the last day but one of the Ceiliuradh International Conference on Liturgy and Worship, the rood-screen of Christ Church Cathedral has been transformed into an iconostasis with candles burnt before the holy pictures whose gilded backgrounds seemed to gather all the light.
The scene was set for the performance of Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil, erroneously known as Vespers; for it is the music for the three services of Vespers, Matins and First Hour. This work is the culmination of the Greek Orthodox tradition as practised in Russia.
The Cathedral Choir, guided by Mark Duley, conveyed not only the musical but the devotional aspects of the masterpiece. The cathedral was almost full so one had the feeling of belonging not to an audience, but to a congregation.
The 28 voices seemed enviably at home in Old Church Slavonic - judging by the confidence with which they followed the surge and fall of the music - thrilling the listeners with the drama that seemed to arise organically from the words of the prayers set by the composer. His use of old Russian chants connects the work with a past stretching back to Byzantium; the richly polyphonic texture is a late development of the Russian choral school; the mixture is more exotic to our ears than it would be to a Russian.
The basses did not have the power of their Russian counterparts, but this is not altogether a disadvantage: it becomes easier to hear the upper and middle parts. All in all, the choir succeeded wonderfully in putting across both the primitive, almost visceral intensity of the emotion and the sophisticated interweaving of vocal lines that is present from beginning to end.
The singing, the cathedral setting and the silent anticipation of the gathering combined to make the occasion a special one.