Musical Moments #23
“This sacred song, and waken raptures high; No voice exempt, no voice but well could join melodious part; such concord is in heaven.”
John Milton in Paradise Lost
“Ave Maria” from the All-Night Vigil by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Sergei Rachmaninoff started playing piano at age four, being sent to study at the St. Petersburg Conservatory at age ten, and finally finishing his formal musical education at the Moscow Conservatory in 1892. He is considered to be one of the greatest pianists of his time. Although he lived and worked in the 20th century longer than in the 19th century, he is considered a Romantic Era composer, exhibiting the influence of his Russian predecessors: Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Mussorgsky, all who also possessed a melodious nature and colorful orchestral writing.
This Russian piano virtuoso, composer and conductor, considered his All-Night Vigil one of his favorite compositions, along with the choral work The Bells. (Today he is best known for his piano concerti.) He even requested the “Nunc Dimittis,” from this work to be sung at his funeral. His immense interest in Russian sacred music was revealed by this timely composition whose premier was only three years before the Soviet Union condemned all religious music. Given he wrote the fifteen movements of the All-Night Vigil in two-weeks, he clearly was thinking of this work for some time prior and he had something he wanted to say.
It was Rachmaninoff’s unhappiness with the political climate that caused he and his family to make the United States home in 1918 after brief stays in Germany, Switzerland, and Finland. He had invested most of his earnings in an estate in Russia which was confiscated by communist authorities, causing him to vow to never return to Russia.
While in America, his primary source of income was piano and conducting performances and during an earlier trip to America, in 1909, he performed nineteen concerts as a pianist and seven as a conductor including appearances with the Boston Symphony, New York Symphony with Mahler conducting and the Philadelphia Orchestra with Stokowski conducting. He became very popular in America and was once offered the job as conductor of The Boston Symphony. It seems prophetic that he included Chopin’s “funeral march” in his last recital. He died from a melanoma four days afterwards in Beverly Hills and he kept his word, never returning to his homeland.
Rachmaninoff was a man of interesting contrasts. He was intense, sometimes referred to as the “six-foot scowl,” but was generous with supporting causes and fellow musicians. Though a quite serious person, he loved fast cars and speed boats. And some of his magnificent pianistic prowess was aided by his huge hands, he could reach an octave and a half with one hand.
The sixth movement, “Bogoroditse Devo” (Ave Maria) is a favorite of choral groups worldwide. Its chant influence combined with rich romantic era harmonies is only part of the appeal. The heavens seem to open up when the men’s voices sing (translated) “hear us pray” at a fortissimo dynamic level only to reveal an elegant and gentle conclusion. The musical soul of Rachmaninoff is on full display.
This October 2002 unaccompanied recording features the Bach Choir singing in Russian.
-John V. Sinclair
Leopold Stokowski describes Rachmaninoff’s music as: “It grows from the roots out to the branches and leaves the flowers and fruits----just as does a tree and just as does the music of Bach.”