Part One Russian Sacred Music 1.Dmitry Bortnyansky (1751-1825) Easter Concert #34 «Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Him flee from before His face.» 2. Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) «Glory to God in the Highest» The All-Night Vigil, Opus 37, is an a cappella choral composition by Sergei Rachmaninoff, written and premiered in 1915. It consists of settings of texts taken from the Russian Orthodox All-Night Vigil service. It has been praised as Rachmaninoff's finest achievement and "the greatest musical achievement of the Russian Orthodox Church." 3. Pavel Tolstyakov(1880-1938) «Come unto Me», all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest… (Matthew 11:28) Soloist: Kirill Sokolov 4. Nikolay Kedrov (1871-1940) «Our Father» Lord's Prayer By the singing of the Lord's Prayer the believers express a strong hope that the Lord will hear their prayer and give them daily bread for body and soul. 5. Alexander Archangel’sky (1846-1924) Sacred Concert «I Think upon the Fearful Day» Sessional Hymn from the Matins service of the Sunday of the Last Judgment 6. Pavel Chesnokov (1877-1944) Troparion: «Blessed art Thou, O Lord; teach me Thy statutes... » from the Russian Orthodox Funeral service Soloist: Andrei Volikov 7. Konstantin Shvedov (1859-1935) “Trisagion” Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us”, is a standard hymn of the Divine Liturgy in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Trisagion prayer is an ancient prayer in Christianity. It may be that the prayer was originally an expansion of the angelic cry recorded in Revelation 4:8 (sometimes called the Sanctus). 8. Pavel Chesnokov (1877-1944) «God Is With Us» Hymn from the All-Night Vigil Part Two Russian Folk Songs 1. «In the Dark Woods» - In this folk song a peasant plows the field for planting flax seeds but he complains that a little sparrow comes around to steal the flax shoots from the field. The peasant threatens to catch the little bird and pluck its feathers, so it stops stealing from his crop. 2. «Monotonously Rings the Little Bell» The story of this song is tragic: In Siberia in 1852 the dead body of a coachman was found: he had frozen during a long journey. There was a notebook with handwritten poems in his bag. The name of the author of the poems, Ivan Makarov, was not known during his lifetime. A year after they were published, the composer, Alexander Gurilev (1803 – 1858), wrote music for the poem he liked the most. 3. «Barynya» is a fast Russian folk dance and music. The word barynya was used by simple folk as a form of address to a woman of higher class, a feminine form for the word "barin", landlord. The Barynya dance is an alternation of chastushkas or song-patter and frenetic dancing. The dancing was without special choreography and consisted mainly of fancy stomping and traditional Russian squatwork – knee bending 4. «I'm alone when entering the road»; Poem by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov A Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", Lermontov became the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837. He is considered the supreme poet of Russian literature alongside Pushkin and the greatest figure in Russian Romanticism. “I'm alone when entering the road Through the mist, the flinty path shines far; Night is calm while listening to the Lord, And a star whispers to another star. Up above there is a holyday! And the land sleeps in a deep blue light... Why am I feeling tired, suffering pain? What to await, be sorry about? I am not expecting any changes, Not at all regretful about my past. I am searching freedom without rages In a doze and sleep that'd always last. Not the sleep that marks the end of living... I'd prefer an everlasting rest when the life within my breast is dreaming While it’s moving up a breathing chest. Through the day and night I'd like to hear The cozy voice of wind of an early spring One that's brought to me by a standing-near Dark-green oak, which would know how to sing.” 5. «Oh, You Wintry Winter», Cold and freezing Winter, you blew the snow and brought in the blizzards and froze me from my toes to the tips of my ears. Song-patter 6. The Volga Boatmen Song – “Yo, heave-ho!” This is a well-known traditional Russian song collected by Mily Balakirev, and published in his book of folk songs in 1866. It is a genuine shanty sung by burlaki, or barge-haulers, on the Volga, Russia’s Mother-River. The burlaki are depicted in Ilya Repin’s famous painting, Barge Haulers on the Volga, which hangs in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. 7. «By the long road" or «Those Were the Days» is a song credited to Gene Raskin, who put English lyrics to the Russian romance song "By the long road", composed by Boris Fomin (1900–1948) with words by the poet Konstantin Podrevskii. It deals with reminiscence upon youth and romantic idealism. The English version: Once upon a time there was a tavern, Then the busy years went rushing by us. Where we used to raise a glass or two. We lost our starry notions on the way. Remember how we laughed away the hours, If by chance I'd see you in the tavern, And dreamed of all the great things we would We'd smile at one another and we'd say: Refrain do. Refrain: Those were the days my friend, We thought they'd never end, We'd sing and dance for-ever and a day, We'd live the life we choose, We'd fight and never lose, For we were young and sure to have our way. Original version: You rode on a troika with sleigh bells, And in the distance lights flickered.. If only I could follow you now I would dispel the grief in my soul! By the long road, in the moon light, And with this song that flies off, ringing, And with this ancient, this ancient seven-string, That has so tormented me by night. Just tonight I stood before the tavern, Nothing seemed the way it used to be. In the glass I saw a strange reflection, Was that lonely person really me? Refrain Through the door there came familiar laughter. I saw your face and heard you call my name. Oh, my friend, we're older but no wiser, For in our hearts the dreams are still the same. Refrain But it turns out our song was futile, In vain we burned night in and night out. If we have finished with the old, Then those nights have also left us! Out into our native land, and by new paths, We have been fated to go now! ... You rode on a troika with sleigh bells, [But] you've long since passed by! 8. «Moscow Nights» “Moscow Nights” is a Russian song, one of those best known outside its homeland. The song was originally created as "Leningrad Nights" by composer Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi and poet Mikhail Matusovsky in 1955 (when both had well-established careers), but at the request of the Soviet Ministry of Culture, this song was transliterated as "Podmoskovnye Vechera" (more or less, "Evenings in Moscow Oblast"); the version was prepared with corresponding changes to the lyrics. In the Soviet Union, the tune became the time signal sounded every 30 minutes on the Mayak music and news radio station from 1964 onward. 9. «Kalinka» Kalinka (juniper) and malinka (raspberry) were the traditional offerings to a pre-Christian Slavic goddess of the earth, symbol of Spring, love and fertility, named Lyuli. As the traditional heavenly ally of the Russian agricultural population, but also of young people in love, Lyuli survived Christianization and is still alive in quite a lot of folksongs. Since most of these songs begin with a similar melody, they all might be derived from a common origin, maybe a very old hymn or a pagan ritual in honor of the goddess Lyuli. We sincerely hope that our program has allowed you to become more deeply familiar with Russian spiritual music, as well as to get acquainted with the unforgettable diversity of Russian folk songs in a variety of genres and periods.