Celebrating Easter in music and pictures

Easter Sunday is the date of the annual celebration of Christ’s resurrection. The date of Easter is determined by the lunar cycle, with each Easter Sunday maintaining the same relationship to the preceding astronomical full moon as occurred at the resurrection in 30 AD. Because the Western Christian (Catholic, Anglican and Protestant) and Eastern Christian (Orthodox) churches use different calendars (Gregorian and Julian respectively) Easter is often celebrated on different dates by the two churches. 2007 is one of the exceptional years when the dates coincide, the previous one was 2004 and the next is 2010.

Orthodoxy was made the official religion of Russia in 988, and the photographs with this article were taken by me in the mother church of all Eastern Christians, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The Russian Orthodox Church followed the Byzantine musical tradition which excluded women’s voices and any instruments except bells. But while the Greek and Middle Eastern Orthodox Churches restrict their liturgical music to unison chant, the Russian and Balkan churches use polyphony. Large numbers of hymns are included in the Russian liturgy, and, except for several celebrated examples from 20th century composers, the church discouraged musical settings of the text. This means there is no Orthodox equivalent to the masses of Palestrina, Haydn and Mozart.


Easter is the most important festival in the Orthodox calendar, and the liturgical music for the festival combines ancient melodies with harmonisations, or original themes, from 19th and 20th century composers. An excellent overview is available on Apex’s super-budget CD, Russian Chants – Russian Easter Liturgy. The CD is sung by the Liturgical Choir of Moscow under Father Amvrosy, and was recorded in Moscow in 1992 by a Russian production team. The Liturgical Choir was an early product of glasnost, and was founded in 1987 to revive and carry on the great traditions of Russian Orthodox liturgical music. Their programme ranges from ancient monodies to harmonisations by Balakirev (1836-1910) and Kalinnikov (1870-1927), and includes the centrepiece of the Easter celebration, Christ is risen from the dead, sung in Greek, Latin and Slavonic.


The best known concert settings of the Orthodox liturgy are by Rachmaninov (Vespers and Liturgy of St John Chrysostom), Tchaikovsky (Liturgy of St John Chrysostom), and Alexander Grechaninov (Vespers). But there is another little-known gem from Grechaninov, who was a contemporary of Rachmaninov. The choral Passion Week cycle was composed in 1911/2, and was premiered in Moscow in 1912. It was only performed once more before Grechaninov fled to France and then the US following the 1917 revolution. Under glasnost the work was revived in Russia in the 1990s, but has remained virtually unknown in the West.

That is about to change as Chandos has just released a superb new recording with the Phoenix Bach Choir and Kansas City Chorale directed by Charles Bruffy. Grechaninov’s 74 minute setting of hymns and biblical texts may be monumental, but it is also meditative and mystical. The recording made in the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Kansas City is demonstration quality, and the choirs more than counterbalance any linguistic shortcomings with their superb technique. The recording was made in just two consecutive days, a remarkable achievement for the choirs and soloists as this is a very big a cappella sing with no instruments to hide behind. Well done everyone, and well done Chandos for making their second recording of Grechaninov’s Passion Week. The first was made in Moscow in the 1990s with Valeri Polyansky conducting the Russian State Symphonic Cappella, the new one is already on my shortlist for best CD of 2007.

* Listen to samples and buy MP3 downloads of Grechaninov's Passion Week here.

Now read the good news from Kiev.
All the photos were taken by me in Hagia Sophia during our recent visit to Istanbul. 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