{"id":88507,"date":"2021-02-09T11:10:37","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T09:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=88507"},"modified":"2021-02-09T11:10:37","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T09:10:37","slug":"a-feeling-of-time-standing-still","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/a-feeling-of-time-standing-still\/","title":{"rendered":"A Feeling Of Time Standing Still"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"88507","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":79834,"related_cahpter":"671","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"A new series - this time: Sergei Rachamaninoff ","content":"

Sergei Rachamaninoff (1873-1943) – Psalm 104 \u201cBless O My Soul\u201d from the \u201cVespers\u201d (All-Night Vigil)<\/span><\/p>\n

Sergei Rachamaninoff\u2019s liturgical compositions were created in Russia in the second decade of the 20th century, at the height of the composer\u2019s fame, also as an artist who performed his own complex works. Today, he is considered one of the best-loved composers of all time.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Vespers, whose real name is the All Night Vigil, was composed in 1915, and its premiere was connected to events from the First World War. It was composed over a very short time, and expresses the great interest that Rachamaninoff had (like many Russian composers) in the prayer rites of the Orthodox Church, which are very different in character from the Gregorian chants of the Western church.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here at 929, we first met Rachmaninoff\u2019s work <\/span>in Psalm 1<\/span><\/a>. While his piece for Psalm 1 includes an original melody of his, Psalm 104 is based on Greek church music, though his treatment of the musical materials goes far beyond mere \u201cadaptation.\u201d He understood that it is impossible to adapt the archaic melodies in a classic Western harmonic style, and so sought new approaches that would become part of his nascent style.<\/span><\/p>\n

The chief characteristic of his setting here is the extended notes of the choir and the soloist, some of which are held for an especially long time, in a sort of echoing hum (closed-mouth singing). The feeling that\u2019s created is one of time standing still, together with a wondrous flow of sheer tone that corresponds with the huge space of the church, and the natural acoustics that exist there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The work is structured as a dialogue between choir and soloist (alto). The choir stays most of the time on the opening verse \u201cBless the Lord, O my soul,\u201d while the soloist moves the reading along through the chapter, touching upon the aspects of nature and Creation, that the chapter is replete with. We can identify paraphrases of \u201cwrapped in a robe of light,\u201d \u201cHe sets the rafters of His lofts in the waters,\u201d and also \u201cthe waters stood above the mountains\u201d (verses 2-6). Rachmaninoff narrows the range of notes of the work to the seven tones of the scale (e.g., just the white keys). But when he quotes verse 24 (\u201cYou have made them all with wisdom\u201d), he adds semi-tones and the mood becomes more Romantic. But he quickly returns to the more monastic tonal structure of the opening, and ends the work in praise to God for all His works.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Vespers\u201d was first recorded in Soviet Russia in 1965 after it hadn\u2019t been played there for many years for ideological reasons. The clip here is an award-winning performance that took place while it was still the Soviet Union (1986).<\/span><\/p>\n

Sergei Rachmaninov – Praise The Lord, O My Soul (1986, uploaded in 2011)
\n<\/span>From the album: Rachmaninov: Vespers Valery Polyansky (Conductor) USSR Ministry Of Culture Chamber Choir Rachmaninoff: Vespers, Op. 37\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":false,"embedded_video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/v1VnAhbcV3M","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"The Psalms In Classical Music","main_caption":"A Feeling Of Time Standing Still","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"A new series - this time: Sergei Rachamaninoff ","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":false,"preview_video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/v1VnAhbcV3M","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88513,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88507\/revisions\/88513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}