The Penitential Psalms were Schnittke’s contribution to the 1988 celebrations of a thousand years of Christianity in Russia. They are settings of sixteenth-century poems by unknown monks on the subject of sin and contrition, and the relevance to Russia in the early years of glasnost hardly needs underlining. There are moments of compelling radiance (the plea to Christ to hear our prayers at the end of No. 5, for instance), but the prevailing tone is austere. Voices of Nature is a short, wordless piece for ten women’s voices and vibraphone, a minor makeweight, conspicuous only for its undigested echoes of Ligeti.
Stefan Parkman and his fine choir must have sweated blood to master the demands of the Psalms and their Russian texts. In places the strain shows, and some of the solos sound distinctly hoarse. Given Chandos’s association with the work’s dedicatees, Valery Polyansky and his Russian State Symphonic Cappella, I confess to some surprise that they chose to go with the Danish ensemble. Perhaps, as with Schnittke’s ecstatic Choir Concerto (Parkman, 2/93, Polyansky, 3/95), they will eventually record the Russians as well.
In the meantime, Polyansky’s version of the Choir Concerto has much inspiration to offer, while the new disc of the Penitential Psalms is valuable for building a complete Schnittke collection.'