Liturgical Music

Liturgical Music from the Russian Cathedral
Johannes-Damascenus Choir; Karl Linke, Director
Nonesuch Records, New York, H-71073
Licensed by Eurodisc Musicproduction, Germany

A consequence of the shift in the organization of my records is a shift in my record buying habits. A few months ago I started the process of filing certain records under their company's name. My instinct as a natural collector is then to collect records from those companies. Collecting from the Nonesuch label is a natural extension to the my sub-collections of scholarly folk music records from around the world (Nonesuch's Explorer Series) and of music from before 1700. The last two months I have bought, all at thrift stores, indiscriminately (nine) records from that label. The record depicted above doesn't fit neither sub-collection category though as most of the music on it was composed around one hundred years ago but the roots of Russian Liturgical music are age-old. A nice feature of Nonesuch records is their serial approach to graphics. The records look good all together. Another nice feature is that all Nonesuch records come with a wealth of information. Information about the songs, the musicians, historical and cultural context, technical information about the music and the instruments, and so on. I just received (a few hours ago) a brief history lesson about liturgical music in general and Russian liturgical music in specific. I spare you the details save for part of the opening sentence of the text on the back sleeve (the whole sentence is rather long), "The awesome cathedral music of the Russian Orthodox church—part Oriental, part Western—is one of the great bodies of choral literature..." (Edward Tatnall Canby), which sounds very promising indeed. And indeed my first response upon playing that record was of awe but unfortunately the awe faded after playing it several times. I can imagine the awe upon hearing the music in the real setting (in the Russian cathedral), but it doesn't really come across in the studio and on the record. Maybe it's because the choir on the record is not even Russian but is a German choir from Essen. The sound file below however is not performed by the full choir but is a solo by the bass. The singer has with Michael Trubetzkoi even a Russian sounding name. I think Trubetzkoi is a great bass but I think a Tuvan or Mongolian throat singer could outperform Trubetzkoi in this Epistle to the Romans. So now I made it impossible for you to listen unbiased to this track . (I wouldn't forward you any music if I didn't think it had merit.)