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resonate | Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil

Sunday, November 12 at 7 pm

Mother Russia discovers the Disney. If ever there was a work that deserves our concert hall’s warm acoustics, it’s Rachmaninoff’s astonishingly beautiful All-Night Vigil.

Bask in the bliss of just the sound of voices. Enveloped in deep, crystalline purity. Transfixed, the spirit soars. “What Sergei Rachmaninoff accomplished...was the creation of the greatest piece of Russian sacred choral music — a miraculous blend of Russian chant and a musical language that did not fear emotion or passion.” — Opera Today

Created at the height of his fame, Rachmanioff’s choral crowning achievement was based on medieval chants and Russian Orthodox liturgy. Musical instruments of any kind were off-limits in the Church so the composer treated voices as his living, breathing instruments in “....a cappella vocal writing [that] achieves an almost orchestral breadth, opulence and variety of expression.”— Andante

Celebrated on the eve of the great feasts of the Church, the service that inspired the composer was intended to last all through the night, from Vespers at dusk through midnight Matins until Prime at dawn. ‘Vigil’ premiered in Moscow on the eve of World War I, two years before the 1917 October Revolution that sent the great Russian composer to the United States where he spent his final days in Beverly Hills. 

Performed for the first time in Disney Concert Hall, Rachmaninoff’s epic masterpiece is an uninterrupted 70 minutes of sheer beauty that you’ll want to go on forever. The soul of Russia revealed to choral true believers.

Download a guide to the season: chorale-seasonguide0607.pdf, 1.1MB