Grechaninov: All-Night Vigil, Op. 59

Featuring

Dārta Paldiņa
Jānis Kurševs
Kārlis Rūtentāls
Jānis Kokins
Sigvards Kļava
Latvian Radio Choir

Alexander Gretchaninov

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Compositional Technique

Grechaninov's All-Night Vigil uses major keys and variants of the major scale to create a sense of light, joy, and exultation.

Performer Biography

Sigvards Kļava, the conductor, has been the artistic director and principal conductor of the Latvian Radio Choir since 1992 and is a professor of conducting.

Composer Biography

Alexander Grechaninov (1864-1956) lived a long life and was described as calm, quiet, loving nature and children, and peacefully religious.

Performer Biography

The Latvian Radio Choir is an award-winning ensemble that has recorded a Grammy Award-winning album, Adam's Lament by Arvo Pärt, and has won Latvia's highest national music award multiple times.

Composition History

Grechaninov's All-Night Vigil, Op. 59, premiered in Moscow on November 18, 1912, performed by the Synod Choir and conducted by Nikolai Golovanov.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Grechaninov's liturgical music, including his four settings of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, is noted for being uncommonly natural, sonorous, harmonious, and homogeneous in expression.

Compositional Technique

The work is written for two choirs to explore the spatial dimension, notably in the imitation of bells, evoking the background sonority of ancient Russia.