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Vespers (Rachmaninoff)
The ''All-Night Vigil'' ( Pre-reform Russian: ''Всенощное бдѣніе'', ''Vsénoshchnoye bdéniye''; Modern Russian: ''Всенощное бдение'') is an a cappella choral composition by Sergei Rachmaninoff, his Op. 37, premiered on 23 March 1915 in Moscow. The piece consists of settings of texts taken from the Russian Orthodox All-night vigil ceremony. It has been praised as Rachmaninoff's finest achievement and "the greatest musical achievement of the Russian Orthodox Church". It was one of Rachmaninoff's two favorite compositions along with '' The Bells'', and the composer requested that its fifth movement (Нынѣ отпущаеши, '' Nunc dimittis'') be sung at his funeral.Sergei Bertensson, Jay Leyda, Sophia Satina, ''Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music'', Indiana University Press, 2001p. 191/ref> The title of the work is often mis-translated as ''Vespers''. This is both literally and conceptually incorrect as applied to the entire work; on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and rich orchestral colours. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output and he made a point of using his skills as a performer to fully explore the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument. Born into a musical family, Rachmaninoff took up the piano at the age of four. He studied with Anton Arensky and Sergei Taneyev at the Moscow Conservatory and graduated in 1892, having already composed several piano and orchestral pieces. In 1897, following the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets ''Swan Lake'' and ''The Nutcracker'', the ''1812 Overture'', his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the ''Romeo and Juliet'' Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera ''Eugene Onegin''. Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching that he received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asparagus
Asparagus, or garden asparagus, folk name sparrow grass, scientific name ''Asparagus officinalis'', is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus''. Its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. It was once classified in the lily family, like the related ''Allium'' species, onions and garlic. However, genetic research places lilies, ''Allium'', and asparagus in three separate families—the Liliaceae, Amaryllidaceae, and Asparagaceae, respectively— the Amaryllidaceae and Asparagaceae are grouped together in the order Asparagales. Sources differ as to the native range of ''Asparagus officinalis'', but generally include most of Europe and western temperate Asia. It is widely cultivated as a vegetable crop. Description Asparagus is a herbaceous, perennial plant growing to tall, with stout stems with much-branched, feathery foliage. The 'leaves' are in fact needle-like cladodes ( modified stems) in the axils of scale leaves; they are long and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harmony
In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However, harmony is generally understood to involve both vertical harmony (chords) and horizontal harmony ( melody). Harmony is a perceptual property of music, and, along with melody, one of the building blocks of Western music. Its perception is based on consonance, a concept whose definition has changed various times throughout Western music. In a physiological approach, consonance is a continuous variable. Consonant pitch relationships are described as sounding more pleasant, euphonious, and beautiful than dissonant relationships which sound unpleasant, discordant, or rough. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Counterpoint, which refers to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basso Profondo
Basso profondo (Italian: "deep bass"), sometimes basso profundo, contrabass or oktavist, is the lowest bass voice type. While ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' defines a typical bass as having a range that is limited to the second E below middle C ( E2),; ''The Oxford Dictionary of Music'' gives E2 to E4 or F4 operatic bassi profondi can be called on to sing low C ( C2), as in the role of Baron Ochs in ''Der Rosenkavalier''. Often choral composers make use of lower notes, such as G1 or even F1; in such rare cases the choir relies on exceptionally deep-ranged bassi profondi termed oktavists or octavists, who sometimes sing an octave below the bass part. Bass singer Tim Storms holds the Guinness World Record for the "lowest note produced by a human". Definition According to Rousseau (1775): "Basse-contres – the most profound of all voices, singing lower than the bass like a double bass, and should not be confused with contrabasses, which are instruments." Oktavist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Znamenny
Znamenny Chant (russian: знаменное пение, знаменный распев) is a singing tradition used by some in the Russian Eastern Orthodox Church. Znamenny Chant is a unison, melismatic liturgical singing that has its own specific notation, called the ''stolp'' notation. The symbols used in the stolp notation are called ' (russian: крюки, links=no, 'hooks') or ' (russian: знамёна, links=no, 'signs'). Often the names of the signs are used to refer to the stolp notation. Znamenny melodies are part of a system, consisting of Eight Tones (intonation structures; called glasy); the melodies are characterized by fluency and balance. There exist several types of Znamenny Chant: the so-called ''Stolpovoy'', ''Malyj'' (Little) and ''Bolshoy'' (Great) Znamenny Chant. Ruthenian Chant (Prostopinije) is sometimes considered a sub-division of the Znamenny Chant tradition, with the Muscovite Chant (Znamenny Chant proper) being the second branch of the same musical con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hilarion Alfeyev
Hilarion (secular name Grigory Valerievich Alfeyev, russian: Григо́рий Вале́риевич Алфе́ев; 24 July 1966) is a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church and the current metropolitan of Budapest and Hungary. He is also a noted theologian, church historian and composer and has published books on dogmatic theology, patristics and church history as well as numerous compositions for choir and orchestra. During 2009-2022 he was the titular metropolitan of Volokolamsk, the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate and a permanent member of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church and rector of the church-wide postgraduate and doctoral studies named after Saints Cyril and Methodius Equal to the Apostles. In June 2022, following a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, Hilarion was removed from his position as president of the Department of External Church Relations of the Patriarchate of Moscow a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk ( Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over and spanning eleven time zones. The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Russian Provisional Government ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Revolution Of 1917
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government following two successive revolutions and a bloody civil war. The Russian Revolution can also be seen as the precursor for the other European revolutions that occurred during or in the aftermath of WWI, such as the German Revolution of 1918. The Russian Revolution was inaugurated with the February Revolution in 1917. This first revolt focused in and around the then-capital Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg). After major military losses during the war, the Russian Army had begun to mutiny. Army leaders and high ranking officials were convinced that if Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, the domestic unrest would subside. Nicholas agreed and stepped down, ushering in a new government led by the Russian Duma (parliament) which became the Russian Prov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moscow Synodal Choir
The Moscow Synodal Choir (Московский Синодальный хор), founded 1721, was the choir attached to the Moscow Synodal School prior to its dissolution and merger into the choral faculty of the Moscow Conservatory in 1919. The choir was revived in 1999. History The basis of the Synodal Choir was the Russian Patriarchal choir formed in the 16th Century of adult clerics. Following the abolition of the Patriarchate in 1700, the choir became known as the "Cathedral Choir" (соборный хор) attached to the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. Following the establishment of the Holy Synod in 1710, the choir officially became known as the Moscow Synodal Choir. Soon after this boy sopranos and contraltos joined the choir to perform the new polyphonic music. In 1919 the Moscow Synodal School was dissolved and merged into the Moscow Conservatory, the Choir ceased to perform sacred music and the boy sopranos were released, though Kastalsky continued to perform fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikolai Danilin
Nikolai Danilin (1878–1945) was a Russian choral conductor. He was born in Moscow in 1878 and also died there in 1945 at the age of 76. Danilin graduated from the Moscow Synod School in 1897 and from the Music and Drama School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society from the piano class of A. N. Koreshchenko in 1907. In 1904 he became assistant director of the Synod Choir and from 1910 to 1918 was its principal director. In 1911, while under his direction, the choir toured Italy, Austria, and Germany, where it demonstrated examples of Russian choral art. After the Great October Socialist Revolution, Danilin directed the best choral groups in the country (the State Choir of the USSR and the Leningrad Academic Choir). In 1923 he began teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, becoming a professor in 1930. During his time at the synod choir, he conducted the 1915 premiere of Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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