It is always questionable whether to include a cantor in performances of the All­Night Vigil‚ more so than usual in this one as it is so palpably a concert performance. Beautiful as the choral tone is – rich‚ warm‚ if patently Western rather than Slavonic in hue – the music is approached with virtuosic tonal gradations and dramatically exaggerated rubatos and accelerandos. Time and again‚ the music almost comes to a halt on the penultimate chord of a cadence‚ as if lingeringly unable to let the resolution come. This can have the effect of distorting the lines‚ and of turning the whole nature of the performance‚ cantor notwithstanding‚ in the direction of a concert. No Russian choir‚ singing the Vigil liturgically‚ would permit itself (or be permitted by its director) to lay such sentimental accretions on the sacred words. The soloists are effective within this manner‚ with Klaudia Zelner a fervent contralto in the ‘Blagoslavi‚ dushe moya’ (‘Bless the Lord‚ O my soul’)‚ and Mikhail Agafonov supplicatory‚ if a little plaintive‚ as the tenor. The acoustic is consciously ‘ecclesiastical’‚ with a glow around the tone that serves the choir well but somewhat obscures the famous bass descent in the ‘Nyne otpushchayeshi’ (‘Nunc dimittis’) down a slow scale to a profound B flat. The booklet includes full translations of the text and chanted readings in German and English‚ but only a transliteration of the Russian text of the musical numbers. Of the various choices available‚ most listeners’ preference would probably go either to the Hyperion by Matthew Best with the Corydon Singers‚ or‚ for a native Russian performance‚ to the classic old Chernushenko versions.