“Modern sacred choir music”, proclaims the cover of this disc. A relative term indeed, ‘modern’ – in this case one could just as easily characterize some 36 minutes of the music as ‘pre-modern’ (or late romantic, or fin de siecle) and 24 minutes as ‘post-modern’, leaving the not-quite two minutes of Stravinsky as modern (albeit archaizing). The ‘pre-moderns’ are Tschesnokov, Grechaninov and Arkhangel’sky, all under-recorded composers here represented by very interesting works. Tschesnokov’s In days of battle is a wonderful cycle (one longs to see the texts, none of which are supplied by Sony, in any language). It is a substantial piece with deep roots in the Russian choral tradition revitalized by the Moscow Synodal School and revealing a tremendous subtlety in the vocal ‘orchestration’ well known from Rachmaninov. The liturgical pieces by Grechaninov and Arkhangel’sky are equally interesting, though smaller in scale, and beautifully sung. The sound of this choir is intriguing; their full tone reminds one of the great days of Russian choral singing before such conductors as Polyansky and Chernushenko really began to make an impression, but they are perfect in their ‘modern’ tuning and technical control.
The former quality comes to the fore in Stravinsky’s wonderful Pater noster and Ave Maria, which nevertheless sound utterly different from the Voronezh choir’s vibrant and rather slower readings on Hyperion. The latter are very much in evidence in Penderecki’s Song of Cherubim, a piece which is fascinating as abstract music but which I can hardly imagine being used liturgically. Equally difficult to imagine in a liturgical context is the sequence of Prayers (from the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom) by Dmitri Smirnov. They are far more informed by (Russian) liturgical tradition than the Penderecki, but present considerable technical difficulties which, in spite of the romantic (or do I mean ‘post-modern’?) expanded tonality of much of the music, would, I feel, obstruct successful performance in a liturgical context. They seem, indeed, a trifle self-consciously exploratory, though repeated hearings bring rewards.'