Vespers

All-Night Vigil

by Сергей Рахманинов

'Свят, свят, свят Ты, Господи.' И ныне и присно и во веки веков. Аминь.
 

‘Holy, holy, holy art thou, O Lord.’
Both now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

I think it is highly appropriate to be singing Rachmaninoff's Vespers the week after Easter, and even if it's in Russian (so that I don't know what I'm saying half the time) it's nice to come across words I do recognize. Even if I didn't know a thing of Russian (which I do) I would recognize words like Jerusalem, Jesus Christ, angels, and Mary. We learned which word meant God, for it looks like "Bog" which doesn't strike a similarity off-hand unless it's pointed out to you. And overall I'm getting a great review of reading and speaking Russian, which I've really enjoyed.

The music itself is definitely intense. It's the hardest stuff I've ever performed as a musician. Because I have a little bit of beginners Russian under my belt I'm trying to read the Russian words rather than the English phonetics because I'll pronounce it better and more clearly than fumbling over the attempted English phonetic mess that I already don't understand. But this music goes fast, and I read fairly slowly so then I end up trying to read both the music notes, Russian words, and English phonetics all at once at a brisk marching pace with enough consonants and vowels to drown anyone. At the same time, I sound a lot better at pronunciation than some people which makes me feel good. And I'm not the only one struggling in choir to get this music down. For some reason, none of us seem to be able to retain much of what we've learned. It's almost like sight-reading every time. And I practice the night before, and the next day whatever I learned is gone. Very frustrating. To try and overcome this I have a recording of this music I've been listening to constantly by following in my music while sitting at work, playing it loud at home and singing along, or just listening to it while I walk down the street. If I knew more Russian, I'd probably be sleeping, eating, and thinking Russian.

Overall though this piece is marvellous. The melody is very haunting at times and Russians like to sing loud. I like to sing loud too. Great combination on my part. And it's completely a capella, no accompainment, piano, or instrumentation of any kind. And there will be 250 singers performing this all weekend. Hopefully we'll all be able to cover enough of everyone else's mistakes so that the audience won't notice. Singing alto has definitely been a challenge in this piece. I look at the sopranos in envy frequently. However, I try to think that I'm becoming a better musician by singing the harder part. And the sopranos get picked on more in class, so I have it easier that way too.

So this piece is the epitome of my entire week and weekend with two dress rehearsals and three performances. Wish me luck!

До свидания!