"All-night vigil" by Sergei Rachmaninov

Main article: History of music in Russia

S.V. Rachmaninov wrote the All-Night Vigil during World War I. The work was first performed on March 10, 1915 in the Great Hall of the Noble Assembly in Moscow (now the Column Hall of the House of Unions) by the Synodal Choir under the direction of N.M. Danilin. The composer dedicated his work to S.V. Smolensky - an outstanding church musician and choral figure.

Rachmaninoff's "All-Night Vigil" belongs to the pinnacles of choral art. This music is still recognized to this day as the unsurpassed "crown of the Moscow school" of sacred music.

Rachmaninov's "All-Night" is based on ancient church chants that existed in the practice of Orthodox worship in different versions: banner, Greek, Kyiv, as well as the composer's own musical themes, stylistically uniform with ancient chants.

Despite the extraordinary success of the premiere, the further fate of "All-Night" was not easy. As a church composition, it did not enter liturgical practice and remained mainly on the concert stage. An exception was the tradition of the annual performance of this work by a church choir conducted by N.V. Matveev in the church of the Icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Mourners" on Bolshaya Ordynka in Moscow. After the death of N.V. Matveev in 1993, many traditions laid down by him, including the performance of Rachmaninov's "All-Night" were interrupted.

In 1995, the St. Petersburg Chamber Choir was nominated for a Grammy Award for its performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil.

On March 26, 2016, the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, rector of the All-Church Graduate School and Doctoral Studies named after Saints Cyril and Methodius, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, held the All-Night Vigil in the Church of the Beheading of the Head of John the Baptist near Bor of the Patriarchal Chernigov Compound in Moscow.

The culmination of Rachmaninoff's "All-Night" are chants dedicated to the Resurrection of the Savior, so at the service this music can only be heard on the eve of Sunday.

The academic large choir "Masters of Choral Singing" under the direction of artistic director L.Z. Kontorovich performed the work of S.V. Rachmaninov "All-Night Vigil" during the service. The Moscow Synodal Choir also sang at the All-Night Service under the direction of Honored Artist of Russia A.A. Puzakov.

At the end of the service, Metropolitan Hilarion addressed the believers with an archpastoral word:

you all, dear brothers and sisters, on Sunday, the day of memory of St. Gregory of Palama, Archbishop of Thessalonica. Today, at the All-Night Vigil, the forces of the state academic choir "Masters of Choral Singing" performed the "All-Night Vigil" by Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov. This remarkable piece of music is very rarely heard in temples because it is very difficult to perform. It takes truly masters of choral singing to learn and perform this work with dignity. But it, written in 1915, in fact, on the eve of the revolution, reflected the entire history of our Church, the history of our sacred music from the very times when it was brought from Byzantium along with the service.

For many years and many centuries, only one-voice chants were used in our Church - the banner and then other chants that have been heard in monasteries and churches of the Russian Orthodox Church for centuries. Then came the time when, after the reforms of Peter I, Western influence penetrated our churches. They began to sing for four voices, in Italian. But the soul of the Russian man still lay to the ancient chants, and throughout the 19th century our great composers, including Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, sought to restore the primitive antiquity in order to harmonize the ancient chants and return to our church singing the national Russian spirit that was inherent in him before the reforms of Peter the Great. To a greater or lesser extent, various composers succeeded, but none of our great composers managed to get so deeply into the spirit of ancient chants, to feel ancient Russian spiritual music as deeply as Rachmaninoff did.

There is not a single original melody in this work, which sounded today. All melodies are borrowed from everyday life, but the rich harmonisation - Rachmaninoff's unique ability to convey the ringing of bells, including through the voices of choral singing - gives this work a very special sound. It's beautiful, deep and prayerful music. When Rachmaninoff's "All-Night" is spoken of as a secular work, I strongly disagree. I think that we were able to make sure that this work sounds great not only on the stage of the concert hall, where it is most often performed, but also within the walls of the Orthodox church for which it was intended.

glad that this work was sounded today in the church of John the Baptist near Bor. This is the first such event in the history of our temple. Rachmaninoff's "All-Night" never sounded here before. I would like to thank the choir "Masters of Choral Singing," artistic director Lev Zinovievich Kontorovich, who performed this work with great skill and with great soul. I congratulate you all on the holiday. May the LORD keep you all