Russkaya Cappella Online Festival of Music

This piece returns us to choral music after the delightful loopiness of Shostokovich's dancing noses. Alexander Gretchaninoff was a contemporary of Rachmaninoff and Kastalsky, and like them, wrote large-scale works for choir in the second decade of the twentieth century. Gretchaninoff is probably best known in choral circles for his All Night Vigil, which predates Rachmaninoff's setting by three years.  His settings of music for Passion Week may be less familiar; this version of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence starts serenely and concludes with a double-choir mimicking the distinctive sound of Russian bells.

Our next selection, Evening Bells, has been made by George, our committee's Tenor Representative. He writes "This song is a family favourite and, interestingly, our familial love for it can be traced back at least a century. My great-grandfather George used to love it, my grandmother Alla loves it, my mum too and so do I. The lyrics of this song were adapted from a poem written by the Irish poet Thomas Moore, in his collection National Airs ." This version is sung by the Moscow Patriarchal Choir, and is borrowed with our thanks from Norman Fowler Sutton's extensive YouTube channel, where a  transliteration and translation of the lyrics can be found.

Selected by Derek, our Bass Rep, who discovered it by accident on Apple Tunes when he downloaded something else, and became hooked.  This version, with orchestral score, is conducted by Kirill Kondrashin, with the Moscow Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra with the RSFSR Academic Russian Chorus.