Alexander Grechaninov - Passion Week Op.58

Alexander Grechaninov (1864-1956)

Passion Week Op.58

Caroline Markham mezzo-soprano

Paul Davidson tenor

Bryan Taylor baritone

Phoenix Bach Choir

Kansas City Chorale

Charles Bruffy

 

Recorded in:

 

Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Kansas City, Kansas, USA

 

26 and 27 March 2004

Reviews

If I had heard this album knowing nothing of the performers, I would smile, nod sagely and say, ‘They’re Russian of course’. Phoenix Arizona and Kansas City would not have registered for a second on my choral radar, but their respective Bach Choir and Chorale will do from now on. Their combined professional forces do full justice to Gretchaninov’s 13 eloquently simple Passion Week pieces, matching the basso profundo richness of the best Russian choirs with refined tuning and impeccably unanimous ensemble. Vocal weight here brings a welcome lustre to the sound without any loss of focus, a quality upheld by Chandos in its excellent surround-sound recording

Classic FM Magazine

Luxuriant textures, sumptuous harmonies, mouth-watering melodies, all beautifully conveyed with ravishing choral tone; this is a simply gorgeous disc.

International Record Review

Gretchaninov’s Passion Week is a companion cycle to his better known All-night Vigil, and it is wonderful to hear it complete. The superlatives have already piled up against Charles Bruffy’s name, and deservedly so. There can only be one reason for a label to release repertoire they already had in their catalogue, and that is that the new performance is so striking. The massed forces of the Phoenix Bach Choir and the Kansas City Chorale (both are professional Groups) make a formidable choral machine, one which seems to produce an unending wave of smoothly blended sound. Furthermore, this music, which can sound static in the wrong hands, has an underlying flexibility of motion under Bruffy’s direction, particularly as it reaches the ecstatic Resurrection tableux.

BBC Music Magazine 'Choice'

Only those with cloth ears and no soul will fail to be transported and uplifted. Thoroughly recommended.

The Organ

Key to this music is the sonorous depth of the basses, which the Phoenix Bach Choir and Kansas City Chorale successfully field throughout these 13 anthems. The choral blend – more soft-edged than you might get with Russian choirs – is an expressive vehicle for a work that instils a state of meditation on Easter’s implications.

The Telegraph

It’s ravishingly sung by two American choirs, both specialists in unaccompanied choral music. On occasion, you miss the shades of meaning and burnished vowel sounds of Russian speakers, but it’s a glorious disc, and highly recommended.

The Guardian

A milestone in Russian choral music delivered in thrilling style.

Gramophone

Only those with cloth ears and no soul will fail to be transported and uplifted. Thoroughly recommended.

The Organ

The sound is exemplary, resonant yet clear in all parts – in stereo. In surround sound, you get all that from every side, plus the impression of an excellent seat in a vast cathedral. The three soloists emerge from the vocal textures, rather than superimposing themselves upon it after the matter of an opera singer with accompanying chorus. With full texts in the original Cyrillic Russian, German, French and English, this is a delight.

Fanfare

It’s a stunner in all respects

American Record Guide

This is one of the finest a cappella choral recordings I’ve ever heard.

International Record Review on CHSA 5045 Eternal Rest

Reviews from Eternal Rest:

For beauty of tone, they can match these illustrious forebears and the warm Chandos sound suits them to perfection… future instalments will be well worth hearing.

Gramophone on CHSA 5045 Eternal Rest

If I had heard this album knowing nothing about its performers, I would smile, nod sagely and say, ‘They’re Russian of course’…. Their combined professional forces do full justice to Gretchaninov’s 13 eloquent simple Passion Week pieces, matching the basso profundo richness of the best Russian choirs with refined tuning and impeccably unanimous ensemble. Vocal weight here brings a welcome lustre to the sound without any loss of focus, a quality upheld by Chandos in its excellent surround-sound recording.

Classic FM Magazine

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Alexander Grechaninov is known to some lucky listeners as one of the most effective composers of Eastern Orthodox-styled church music for unaccompanied voices to come out of the post-Romantic period. Grechaninov's Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom, Opp. 13 and 29, contain some of the most moving and spiritually prescient music to be found on the other side of Rachmaninoff's Vespers, Op. 37. Even to those who know of Grechaninov's liturgical settings, his Passion Week, Op. 58, will come as a bit of a surprise. Composed on 13 Old Slavonic texts used during Holy Week services, Passion Week isn't a liturgical work at all but an independent set of choruses in which Grechaninov is simply stretching out in his choral writing without having to stay true to the strictures of the Eastern Orthodox service; these works are designed for concert performance by an expert choir. Perhaps that is one reason why they are so obscure; performed once in St. Petersburg under the composer in 1913, they weren't heard again until the 1990s. Grechaninov sought to "exhaust all the technical means which the unaccompanied chorus can render" in this work, and while he certainly doesn't resort to new music techniques, such as clapping, hiccupping, or jingling one's pocket change, in terms of range, dynamics, and ensemble expression within conventional tonality, Passion Week really pushes the envelope. Grechaninov's choral writing is almost symphonic in its sound and range and the sheer fluidity of approach to his rhythm, most of it at an extremely slow tempo, is itself breathtaking.

In this first-ever complete recording of Grechaninov's Passion Week, Chandos has pressed into service the mighty Kansas City Chorale, augmented by the Phoenix Bach Choir, in movements for double chorus and presumably elsewhere in this virtuoso work as well. Recorded at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Kansas City, this Direct Stream Digital Super Audio CD simply has marvelous sound that reproduces the very breath of the farthest chorister. Bassists singing pitches as low as a "low D" can clearly be heard, not just sensed, in the recording. There are no stray noises to distract from Grechaninov's central message, although there are tiny shifts of the overall sense of pitch here and there -- at least everyone shifts that way together. This is to be expected in a cappella choral music of such great harmonic richness, wide compasses of range, and long-held pitches. Chandos' Grechaninov: Passion Week, Op. 58, is a slam-dunk for those who love great choral music; it is a major addition to the recorded repertoire for chorus and is a telling example of what "high holy minimalism" sounds like when it isn't minimal.