Telluride's Renaissance Singers, the Fort Lewis College Chamber Choir and the Durango Women's Choir join the Durango Choral Society for "Heaven & Earth," two concerts musically illustrating both, and everything in between, Friday, February 24 at 7:00 p.m. and Saturday, February 25 at 2:00 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 2917 Aspen Dr. in Durango. Tickets, $15 for adults and $6 for students and children, are available online at www.DurangoChoralSociety.org, by calling 1-800-838-3006, and at the door.
The two final works on the program, Rachmaninoff's "Bogoroditse Dev" and Bortniansky's "Cherubic Hymn" will be performed by the 125 singers of the combined choirs surrounding the audience.
Sergei Rachmaninoff’s "All-Night Vigil," Opus 37 – popularly known as the "Vespers" – stands as the crowning achievement of the Golden Age of Russian Orthodox sacred choral music. During this period, which began in the 1880s and lasted until the Communist takeover in 1917, dozens of Russian composers turned their creative energies to composing choral music on texts drawn from the Russian Orthodox liturgy. For melodic material they looked to the wellspring of ancient unison chants, but using these chants in contemporary liturgical settings required dressing them up. It was critical to these composers that Russian church music sound characteristically Russian and not Italian or German. Important new direction was provided the composers by musicologist Stepan Smolensky (1848-1909), who brought to light the historical study of ancient chant, and the composer Alexander Kastalsky (1856-1926), who borrowed part-writing techniques from the Russian choral folk song.
"Bogoroditse Devo," perhaps the most widely known hymn from Rachmaninoff’s cycle, captures both the gentle simplicity of the angelic greeting and the awe-struck glorification of her response to God.
Dmitry Stepanovich Bortniansky (1751–1825) was a Ukrainian composer who is best known today for his liturgical works. He composed in many different musical genres and styles, including choral compositions in French, Italian, Latin, German, Church Slavonic and Russian. In 1882, Pyotr Tchaikovsky edited the liturgical works of Bortniansky, which were published in ten volumes. While Bortniansky wrote operas and instrumental compositions, it is his sacred choral works that are performed most often today. This vast body of work remains central not only to understanding 18th-century Orthodox sacred music, but also served as inspiration to his fellow Ukrainian composers in the 19th century.
The Cherubic Hymn is the primary "cherubikon," or song of the angels, sung during every Divine Liturgy of the year except those of Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday. It occurs after the Gospel reading. The Cherubic Hymn was added to the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom by order of the Emperor Justinian near the end of the sixth century. Bortniansky wrote seven Cherubic Hymns. Cherubim are a type of angel usually involved in sacred work before God. They are generally described as winged creatures with feet and hands. The word(s) occurs over 90 times in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament at Heb. 9:5, "And above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat; but of these things we cannot now speak in detail." The use of the word "Alleluia" in the Liturgy is also a very old inheritance from the Synagogue. It became a cry of joy without much reference to its exact meaning in a language no longer understood (as did Hosanna). Its place in the Liturgy varied considerably. In the Byzantine Rite it comes as the climax of the Cherubic Hymn at the Great Entrance.
The tune Bortniansky wrote for the Latin hymn "Tantum Ergo" eventually became known in Slavic lands as "Kol Slaven," in which form it is still sung as a Christmas carol today. The tune was also popular with freemasons. It travelled to English-speaking countries and came to be known by the names "Russia," "St. Petersburg" or "Wells." In Germany, the song was paired with a text by Gerhard Tersteegen, and became a well-known chorale and traditional part of the military ceremony "Grosser Zapfenstreich" (the Grand Tattoo), the highest ceremonial act of the German army, rendered as an honor for distinguished persons on special occasions. Prior to the October revolution in 1917, the tune was played by the Moscow Kremlin carillon every day at midday. James Blish, who novelized many episodes of the original series of Star Trek, noted in one story, "Whom Gods Destroy," that Bortniansky's "Ich bete an die Macht der Liebe" was the theme "to which all Starfleet Academy classes marched to their graduation."
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