Sergei Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil op. 37
Sergei Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil op. 37 (also known as the Vespers) is his last contribution to Russian Orthodox church music. The liturgical model for this piece is a worship service which is held on the evening preceding high feast days and consists of a sequence of prayers, readings and chants. Composed in 1915, in this work for a cappella choir Rachmaninoff succeeded in adapting ideas of late Romanticism to the monophonic liturgical chants of the Russian Orthodox Church. Since then, with its warm resplendant sound this work is regarded as a showpiece for large choirs. The emotional depth of this work is brought to the fore most impressively in the outstanding recordingby the West German Radio Choir (WDR), under the direction of Nicolas Fink.
