Vespers, Op. 37
All-Night Vigil

In the history of Russian church music, which came to a sudden and violent end with the outbreak of the October Revolution, Rachmaninoff’s Vespers is generally considered to mark the crowning conclusion. Thus it forms a culmination in the evolution of nearly a thousand years of church music. The work was first performed in Moscow on March 10, 1915. In 1910, few years before the Vespers, Rachmaninoff had already composed a major Liturgy, that is, the Orthodox Eucharist (“Mass”). At this time, he had already long been established as one of the greatest Russian musicians of his time, as composer, pianist and conductor.

Rachmaninoff had taken hold of the tradition by its oldest root and incorporated it into his own highly expressive musical idiom. Even the composer himself, who was so skeptical and critical of his own creations, considered this work to be one of his most successful. (excerpts from booklet)

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Recording 14.–18.06.2004, Christuskirche Stuttgart-Gänsheide. Reedycja płyty H 93112.