The
All-Night Vigil
is a service unique to Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches. It agglomerates the hours of Vespers, Matins, and Prime, and sometimes Compline on important liturgical days, and it has attracted composers from the Orthodox world for centuries. The most famous setting is that by
Rachmaninov
, but his is by no means the only one. Nevertheless, settings have hitherto been in the Old Church Slavonic language, which adds to the mystery generated by the strikingly low voice ranges of Russian Orthodox church music and by the general unfamiliarity of the liturgy. This English-language setting by
Robert Kyr
is thus something of a pioneering enterprise. Based on a translation of the texts by Orthodox scholar
Ephrem Lash
, the text follows exactly those set by
, with the result that the two settings might profitably be heard together; the present work is, in some sense, a response to
's. Some of the theological issues raised by
Kyr
's work will be of great interest to those versed in the Orthodox faith, and he delves into many of the issues in a booklet note, but listeners of any background cannot help but be struck by the beauty of
Cappella Romana
's singing, and by the control exerted over the group by conductor
Alexander Lingas
. The soloists are not powerhouses, but they shouldn't be; they fit seamlessly and skillfully into the texture. The musical language is neither a reproduction of
's nor a more modernist system; it just slightly extends late Romantic harmonies, emphasizing certain text junctures with surprising harmonic shifts. Sample the track "Blessed Are You, O Lord, Teach Me Your Statutes."
once again achieves impressive, detailed sound from the Madeleine Parish in Portland, Oregon. This is something of a landmark recording that libraries should find especially interesting. ~ James Manheim