Singing familiar texts in an unfamiliar language can make them feel altogether different. I know very little Russian, so there was a lot of grappling with the Old Church Slavonic texts of Rachmaninov’s Vespers (strictly the ‘All-Night Vigil’), which I performed in Bath Abbey last weekend with the South West Festival Chorus, and I wouldn’t claim the words tripped easily off my tongue. But ‘Svyat!’ sounds much beefier and more dynamic than ‘Holy’, ‘Sanctus’ or their close cognates.
I sang the first part of the Vespers some years ago on a Good Friday in Wells Cathedral with the Bath Camerata, and had performed the ‘Magnificat’, but had never done a complete performance. It really is a long haul, especially towards the end; the last three movements have no breaks from singing at all. Perhaps in liturgical performance they were be performed over a period of time so the singers could catch their breath. I have to admit that I don’t care for the last movement much. I think of it as ‘troika music’ – it rattles along in a jolly sort of way as if you’re bouncing along in a sleigh. It is possible to write great, fast religious music, but this isn’t an example of it.
The performance was written up in the Bath Chronicle and also on Seen and Heard International (ignore the page title). I’ll now address a point from this latter review.
The reviewer comments on the relative lack of men, in particular tenors. This isn’t a very recent phenomenon; I had the same difficulties recruiting for a large chorus at university. There were even some known tenors who seemed to think it was somehow sissy and insisted on singing bass. Our band of tenors on Saturday managed valiantly even if they were outnumbered. (And it was a group of them singing in the Nunc Dimittis, rather than a soloist). The reviewer also picked up that our conductor’s (Gavin Carr’s) favourite movement was the penultimate one. (I myself am torn between the Magnificat – for my money the greatest setting of this text – and the wonderful key changes in ‘O Gladsome Light’).
After the interval I joined other choir members at the east end and enjoyed Peter Donohoe’s performances of the Third Piano Concerto with Jason Thornton and the (mostly student) Bath Spa Symphony Orchestra. With closed-circuit screens it was possible to see his fingers turn to a blur in the fast passages. Hard to believe that the same composer wrote all the music on the programme; and his songs show a different side again.