Two very different all-night vigils

Religion suffered terrible oppression in the Soviet Union, and one of the post-Perestroika miracles has been the resurgence of faith in the region, despite the continuing political turmoil. One example of the religous resurgence is the Convent of St. Elisabeth in Minsk, Belarus which is seen in my photographs here.

The Convent was founded in 1999 and is now home to seventy-five nuns and novices. The buildings are new, and funding for the project is a continuing struggle in the tough economic climate that prevails in Belarus. The Sisters of St. Elisabeth raise foreign currency by selling crafts made in their workshops and recordings made by their excellent choir. Two of the lay Sisters from the Convent stayed with us here in Norfolk last week while fund raising, and their CD shown below is a real discovery.


Rachmaninov's concert setting of the Orthodox All-night Vigil is well known. But the choir of St. Elisabeth's Convent in Minsk give us a different take which combines Greek, Slavonic and Bulgarian Chants. It is something of a revelation to hear women's voices singing the Orthodox liturgy, and the Convent choir acquit themselves wonderfully. Their recording of the All-night Vigil is only available direct from the Convent, email monaster-nov at yandex.ru for more details.


There is an all-night vigil of a very different sort at 12.01am this Wednesday, December 5th when I will be playing Alvin Curran's Inner Cities complete. The four and a half hour performance will be not be interrupted by any announcements, commercials or news bulletins. More details of this broadcast premiere here.

Good to see An Overgrown Path featuring on the Virtual Guide to Belarus, and more on Russian Orthodox music here.
Listen by to Inner Cities at 12.01am UK time on Wednesday December 5 by launching the Radeo internet player from the right side-bar, or via the audio stream. Convert broadcast times to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Kontakion of the Dead

Thoughtfully planned and beautifully sung concert by the Cathedral Consort directed by David McKee in Norwich Cathedral last night. Here is the programme:

Kontakion of the Dead - Traditional Kiev Hymn
Crossing the bar - Hubert Parry
A Prayer of St Thomas Aquinas - David McKee
Elegy (organ solo) - George Thomas Thalben-Ball
The Souls of the Righteous - Geraint Lewis
For the Fallen - Mark Blatchley
Greater Love - John Ireland
***
Requiem - Herbert Howells
Sleep - Eric Whitacre

Photo taken by me in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul. See more of that wonderful church, and read about Russian Orthodox music here.
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The political dimension of the artist

'So it is a question of with whom you want to communicate. It must be a free person for an artist can only communicate with free people. Yet in order to be free that person must have solved certain problems. He must have a job, he must be educated and in good health, he must have certain rights and dignity. I, as an artist, would like to have an interchange with such a person. You can't create art with slaves, no matter whether they were forced into slavery or made to adopt a slavish attitude. At this point the political dimension of the artist comes into force. He must contribute to the rescue of mankind out of pure self-interest.'

Mikis Theodorakis was born on July 29th 1925 on the Greek island of Chios, and his words above are from the sleeve notes for his own recording of his Requiem. The concept of 'free people' resonates strongly for Theodorakis. He had fought in the resistance against the occupying Fascists in World War 2, and was exiled in the subsequent Greek Civil War. He then studied music at the Athens Conservatoire, and in Paris with Olivier Messiaen.

Following the Greek military junta in 1967 Theodorakis went underground, and his music was banned by military decree. He was imprisoned for five months until an international pressure group including Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Miller, and Harry Belafonte achieved his release, and he went into exile in April 1970. Theodorakis continued his opposition in exile through concerts and by enlisting the support of international leaders.

After the fall of the Colonels, Theodorakis returned to Greece, and took an active part in politics on a left wing ticket. He was elected to the Greek Parliament twice, and became a minister in the government in the early 1990s. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, and opposed both NATO’s involvement in Kosovo and the invasion of Iraq, and has been publicly critical of the policies of George W. Bush.

Mikis Theodorakis is best known for his music for the cinema, notably for his sound-track for Constantin Costa-Gravas' film Z which became a rallying call for opponents of the military regime, and for the film of Nikos Kazantzakis' novel Zorba the Greek which became a sound-track for tourism in Greece. But there is a lot more to Theodorakis' music, including five published symphonies, a string quartet, a Requiem, and five operas.

His 1984 Requiem sets the words of the 6th century Syrian monk John of Damascus. The structure of the work follows the Orthodox Mass for the Dead, and is quite distictinct from the more common Roman Catholic and Protestant requiems. Theodorakis is best known for his music for the theatre, and his Requiem is theatrical as well as sacred music.

Although rooted in the Orthodox rite it uses elements which are not permitted in the Orthodox liturgy - children's and women's voices and a full symphony orchestra, and builds Western polyphony and harmony on a Byzantine foundation. But this is most definitely spiritual music. Although sacred music started moving from the church to the concert hall in Haydn's time, Theodorakis' Requiem, thankfully, does not move as far into the concert hall as Leonard Bernstein's Mass - A Theatre Piece for Singers.

An excellent recording of Mikis Theodorakis' Requiem is available, with the composer conducting (photo below) the St. Petersburg Academic Capella Children's Choir, Choir and Symphony Orchestra. The recording was made in 1997 in the Capella Concert Hall, St. Petersburg, and is on the German Intuition Classics label, as are many other CDs of Theodorakis' music. You can read about Mikis Theodorakis' songs of freedom on this path.


Predictably BBC Radio 3 is not marking Mikis Theodorakis' birthday today, instead they are presenting that rarest of twentieth century music, a Shostakovich symphony. So I will make some small amends on my Overgrown Path programme on Future Radio this afternoon by playing the concluding six movements of Theodorakis' Requiem, plus the Greek Dances of Nikos Skalkottas, who studied with Schoenberg.

The programme is broadcast between 5.00pm and 6.00pm British Summer Time on Sunday July 29 (and following Sundays) and is available on web radio. Convert on-air times to your local time zone using this link. Click here for the audio stream. Windows Media Player doesn't like the stream very much and takes ages to buffer, WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you happen to be in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM

Today's broadcast and the following week (Aug 5) are test transmissions, and will be identified as such. The station launches on August 6, and here is the provisional forward schedule for Overgrown Path radio with links to the blog articles they are based on. Unless indicated all works will be played complete:

July 29 (test) - The political dimension of the artist: Nikos Skalkottas Seven Greek Dances, Mikis Theodorakis Requiem (excerpts).
Aug 5 (test) - The American Symphony: William Howard Schuman Symphony No.5 (Symphony for Strings), Aaron Copland Short Symphony, Alan Hovhaness Symphony No. 2 "Mysterious Mountain".
Aug 12 - Brain Music: Thea Musgrave Helios, Howard Skempton Lento, William Alwyn Symphony No. 5 "Hydriotaphia".
Aug 19 - Pierre Boulez - great bogeyman of 20th century music: Boulez Messagesquisse, Gyorgy Ligeti Violin Concerto, Boulez Rituel in Memoriam Bruno Maderna.
Aug 26 - Malcolm Arnold - Neglected 20th century master: English Dances, Set 1, Guitar Concerto, Four Scottish Dances, Symphony No. 5 (last movement).
Sept 2 - American minimalists: Terry Riley Cortejo Fúnebre en el Mont Diablo from Requiem for Adam, John Adams Shaker Loops, Terry Riley The Philosopher’s Hand, Terry Riley – In C (excerpt).
Sept 9 - The eternal feminine: Beata Moon Piano Sonata, Elizabeth Maconchy String Quartet No 5, Elisabeth Lutyens Wittgenstein Motet, Vanessa Lann – Dancing To An Orange Drummer.
Sept 16 - Contemporary sacred music: Judith Weir All The Ends of the Earth, Morten Lauridsen – Lux Aeterna, Salve Regina (Gregorian Chant), Bayan Northcott Salve Regina, Morten Lauridsen – O Magnum Mysterium.
Sept 23 - Music of Lou Harrison: Varied Trio, Piano Concerto, Kunsonoro kaj Gloro (excerpt from La Koro Sutro).
Sept 30 - Benjamin Britten - music does not exist in a vacuum: Concerto for Violin, The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.
Oct 7 - New music from the Baltic: Pehr Henrik Nordgren Equilibrium for 19 strings, Peteris Vasks Botschaft (Message), Per Nogard Constellations.

This is going to be real 'post-ratings radio 2.0. You can even see Pliable on the studio webcam, and send messages to the studio via the Future Radio website. To paraphrase Mikis Theodorakis this is my tiny contribution to "the rescue of mankind out of pure self-interest". Or as Libby Purves wrote - "ratings have to be watched, but calmly and with a sense of proportion. You have to believe that if even one person is swayed, or inspired, or changed, or comforted, by a programme, then that programme has been worthwhile". As ever comment, on both the schedule and transmissions if you can catch them, are welcome.
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Estonian chamber choir - small is beautiful

'Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful' famously wrote E. F. Schumacher. Friday night's opening concert of the 2007 Norwich and Norfolk Festival by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Paul Hillier was small, both in forces and duration, and it certainly was beautiful. This was one of those rare evenings when the planets align. The programme of Nikolai Kedrov, Arvo Pärt, Tchaikovsky, Cyrillus Kreek and excerpts from Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil was sublime. The choir demonstrated their peerless authority in the Baltic repertoire, and Paul Hillier demonstrated why he has built such a reputation as a musician's conductor.

The venue was Norwich's far from small Norman cathedral, but despite the towering architecture this was very much a chamber performance where, refreshingly, individual lines did not take second place to overall effect. We had bought top price seats in the second row as we know from experience that separate lines become confused in the reverberant cathedral when heard from further down the nave. As a bonus our front seats also allowed us to observe Paul Hillier's unique taste in conducting footwear, he has certainly found a schumacher with style.

In his provaocative book, What We Really Do (The Musical Times ISBN 0954577701), another fine choral conductor, Tallis Scholars founder Peter Philips, argues that sacred choral music is best performed in modern concert halls because both the sound and the amenities are better. Despite this view the Estonian Choir hedged their bets on this current tour. Two of their four concerts are in modern halls, Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, and the superb new 1200 seater Perth Concert Hall in Scotland. Incidentally, both these magnificent looking and sounding concert halls were built in the last fifteen years, which is enduring evidence that, despite the gloom merchants, classical music is very much alive and kicking today.

The other two concerts by the Esonian visitors and their English conductor are in traditional churches in, Norwich and Edinburgh . At Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh it must have been a surprise for the choir to find themselves swapping the turbulent politics of 21st century Estonia for the turbulent politics of 21st century Scotland.

Performance venues are an essential part of live music-making, so are commissions for new music. I have already written here how Arvo Pärt's I am the true vine was commissioned by Norwich Cathedral in 1996. Credit should be given to the patrons of two more works by Pärt performed by the Estonian choir in the cathedral on Friday evening. Da pacem Domine was commissioned by that musical life-force Jordi Savall, while Bogoroditse dyevo (Mother of God and Virgin) was written for King's College Choir, Cambridge in 1990.

Those mentions of King's College Choir, Cambridge and the Mother of God and Virgin bring this overgrown path full circle. On Friday evening we were privileged to hear the Estonian choir in Norwich. The following afternoon we viewed the Balkan (not Baltic!) Icons exhibition at the Michaelhouse Centre in Cambridge, and the icon above of the Virgin Mary with infant Christ painted by the Serbian artist Todor Mitrovic in 2002 is from that exhibition. Do explore the images via this link, they are simply stunning. And from the immensely moving icons exhibition it was just a few steps to choral evensong in King's College Chapel.

E.F. Schumacher also wrote ~ 'Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful '. Amen to that.

We are now off to Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers followed by jazz from the Bobo Stenson Trio. If you can't be there why not read about Monteverdi in Cambridge?
My header image is from the Balkan Icons exhibition which is touring internationally. I will be featuring more images from this wonderful exhibition in the future. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

New music for an ancient liturgy

The liturgical music of the Orthodox Church contains many riches, and discs already featured here such as Brilliant Classic’s Sacred Russian Choral Music and Liturgy of St John Christendom, and Ivan Moody’s Akáthistos Hymn are in constant rotation in my CD player. They have been joined recently by another disc from the enterprising Gagliano Recordings label, this time of music by a contemporary Greek-American composer new to me. Tikey Zes was born in Southern California in 1927, and studied with Ingolf Dahl. His career has included recording the music of Ockeghem, and holding the posts of Professor of Composition at San José State University and choir director of the Greek Orthodox Church of St Nicholas in San José, and my photo above was taken in that church.

The new Gagliano CD Tikey Zes Choral Works includes sacred pieces from the Orthodox liturgy starting with the Great Doxology. As well as liturgical music Tikey Zes has composed a song cycle for high voice and piano on poems by Cavafy, and a number of arrangements of Greek folk songs, two of which conclude the CD. The choir is the excellent Cappella Romana directed by Alexander Lingas, the same forces as those on the Akáthistos Hymn and Fall of Constantinople CDs that have featured here.

The recording venue is St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Portland, Oregon, and credit should go to producer Bryan Johanson and engineer David Johnson for a startlingly life-like recording. Although the Orthodox tradition is for instruments not to be used in worship, Tikey Zes follows the contemporary Greek-American practice of supporting the choir with an organ or piano, and this gives some very impressive pedal notes from organist John Vergin.

In recent years a school of composers working on the West Coast of the US has developed a new liturgical style which combines the traditions of the Greek Orthodox liturgy with the more familiar sounds of Renaissance polyphony, and this has been championed by ensembles such as Cappella Romana. The compositions and performances captured on Tikey Zes Choral Works stay true to their sacred roots, but speak in a fresh and accessible voice that should win a lot of new listeners – highly recommended.

Now take An Overgrown Path to visit the Orthodox Church of Saint Seraphim, Walsingham
Photo of Metropolitan Gerasimos from Greek Orthodox Church of St Nicholas, San José. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Now that's what I call a concert

Cappella Romana directed by Alexander Lingas perform luminous choral music by contemporary composers steeped in the Byzantine tradition. Featured works include: Radiant Cloud and the world premiere of A Woman Clothed with the Sun, a setting from the Book of Revelation, by Michael Adamis and the "Benedictions" from the Requiem by Mikis Theodorakis who featured on these pages recently. Portland: Fri, Apr 20, 2007, 8:00pm @ St Mary’s Cathedral, 1716 NW Davis St, & Seattle: Sat, Apr 21, 2007, 8:00pm @ Holy Rosary Church, 4139 42nd Ave SW

Now read about more imaginative concert programming.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Books and music reflect the crisis of Islam

A report on Arab Human Development in 2002, prepared by a committee of Arab intellectuals and published under the auspices of the United Nations, reveals some striking contrasts. “The Arab world translates about 350 books annually, one-fifth of the number that Greece translates. The cumulative total of translated books since the Caliph Mamoun’s time (the ninth century) is about 100,000, almost the average that Spain translates in one year” …

Islam is one of the world’s great religions. It has given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has taught men of different races to live in brotherhood and people of different creeds to live side by side in reasonable tolerance. It inspired a great civilization in which others besides Muslims lived creative and useful lives and which, by its achievement, enriched the whole world. But Islam, like other religions, has also known periods when it inspired in some of its followers a mood of hatred and violence. It is our misfortune that we have to confront part of the Muslim world while it is going through such a period, and when most – though by no means all – of that hatred is directed against us.

Two reflections from The Crisis of Islam by Bernard Lewis,(Phoenix ISBN 0753817527). This concise book is an expansion of a New Yorker article first published in November 2001. Bernard Lewis is the Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus at Princeton University. His books have been translated into more than twenty langauages, including Arabic, Persian and Turkish.

Now playing – The Fall of Constantinople sung by a veritable fixture On An Overgrown Path, Cappella Romana directed by Alexander Lingas. The ancient capital of Byzantium was caught between Latin West and Islamic East, and this CD captures the peak of that civilization with Byzantine chant and polyphony from the majestic ceremonies in the great Christian cathedral of Hagia Sophia. But the music also reveals the paradox of the Near East as it triumphantly asserts the dominance of the west, while fervently pleading for the healing of religious divisions.

It was this very paradox that was the downfall of Byzantium, and on 29th May 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, and that jewel of Eastern Christianity, Hagia Sophia, became a Muslim mosque. The fall of Constantinople is recognised on this inspirational CD with laments by Manuel Chrysaphes and Guillaume Dufay. Chrysaphes was the Lambarios at Hagia Sophia at the time of the fall, and he expressed his desolation by setting the verses from Psalm 78 using kalophonic chant, which are sung on the CD by Cappella Romana. My header picture, from the excellent Byzantine.net, shows Hagia Sophia as it might appear today, had it not become a mosque, and later a tourist attraction. In this visual reconstruction the minarets have been removed and the life-giving cross restored to the dome.

Professor Lewis’ book and Cappella Romana’s CD shed much needed light on the crisis of Islam. But before anyone gets too self-righteous about those thought-provoking statistics on book availability in the Arab world, they should dwell on the fact that this important CD from Cappella Romana’s is not available in Europe, I had to import my copy from the US.

Tonight the Overgrown Path literally leads to Constantinople and we fly out to Istanbul. Tomorrow I will be standing under the great dome of Hagia Sophia. There will be a few day's break in posts while we revel in the legacy of Byzantium, so please visit some of the other excellent music blogs in my sidebar until I return.

Now, read about the composer who set the psalms in Ottoman Turkish, and hear the result
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Let's celebrate the good news from Kiev

Why are we so fixated on bad news from the former Soviet Union? When we are not replaying yesterday's revelations about Shostakovich, Stalin's purges and communist black-lists we are broadcasting today's news about gas prices and murder by plutonium. It is all rather sad, and baffling, because there is so much to celebrate in this vibrant region. So today, let's counterbalance the awful religous persecution, that lasted from the revolution of 1917 to the millenium of the Russian Church in 1988, with the good news of a new cathedral that is nearing completion in Kiev in Ukraine, and then follow that story with a download of music from one of the region's monasteries.

The new patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ in Kiev, which can be seen in my photo above, is a five-domed church 49 meters wide, 56 meters long and 61 meters high. It combines traditional design with contemporary features. Four of the gilded domes, representing the four evangelists, surround a larger, central dome, representing the figure of Christ. There is capacity for some 1,500 faithful to worship. When the new cathedral is completed the spiritual centre of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church will move from St. George’s Cathedral in Lviv to the capital of Ukraine, where currently the Greek Catholics only have two small churches.

The Cathedral of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is sited on a channel of the Dnipro River, and there is a special alleyway to allow for processions to the banks of the Rusanivka Channel for Epiphany celebrations. Noted Ukrainian architect Mykola Levchuk designed the structure, which took the top prize for contemporary building designs for religious structures at a recent architectural design contest in Moscow.Mykola Levchuk, 62, from Kiev, is the director of the renown local architectural practice Kyivproyekt.

Now playing - Orthodox Church Music from Ukraine sung by the monks of The Holy Trinity, St Jonah Monastery, Kiev. This monastery was founded in 1862, but was suppressed in 1934. Following the collapse of communism the monastery once again became a religous foundation centred on the monastic church, which dates from 1871. Services are also held in the Zverinetskoe cave complex nearby which has been a place of worship since the 13th century. This excellent CD of hymns from the All-Night Vigil is from a catalogue of more than 100 recordings of Orthodox music on the Ikon label which is linked to the Diocese of Sourozh in London, part of the Patriarchate of Moscow. If you like Rachmaninov's take on the Orthodox Vespers you are going to like the real thing - listen to this 1' 12" MP3 file of Antiphons of Ascent (Tone 4) from Matins -

* The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which is building the patriarchial cathedral in Kiev, is the largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches, and is a Church of the Byzantine rite which recognises Papal supremacy. The Holy Trinity - St Jonah Monastery is part of the Russian Orthodox Church which recognises the Patriarch of Moscow as its head.

* It is extraordinary that the Eastern Orthodox Church (of which the Russian Church is part) is not better known in English speaking countries. It has 240 million members around the world, making it the second largest Christian congregation after the Catholics. The Orthodox Church is the original Christian Church founded by the followers of Jesus, from which the Catholics and Anglicans split. St Stephen's Press, the publishing house of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchal Diocese of Sourozh, has an excellent slim introduction to the church. The title is The Orthodox Church, the author is Sergei Hackel (that link is to a biography well worth reading), the ISBN is 0951903721, the cover is shown here, and it is available from Amazon. Readers interested in liturgical music and the visual arts are urged to explore the riches of the Orthodox faith.

* Recommended web resources include Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church - Religous information service of Ukraine - History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Orthodox links - Encyclopedia of Ukraine. IOCC is the official humanitarian aid agency of Orthodox Christians worldwide. It was founded in the US in 1992, and has field offices in Russia, Georgia, Greece, Yugoslavia, Bosnia Herzogovina, Romania and Jerusalem.

For more inspirational new cathedrals and monasteries with musical connections take An Overgrown Path to Evry Cathedral, and La Tourette in France, and Prinknash Abbey in England.
With many thanks to the French langauage newsletter of my spiritual home in France, the Benedictine L'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux, for the heads-up on this story. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk