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Content: Sergei Rachmaninov Artists: Latvian Radio Choir Sigvards Klava, conductor Genres: Choral Series: Bestsellers Features: Hybrid SACD (SACD Surround 5.0 / SACD Stereo / CD Stereo - playable on all SACD and CD players); booklet with liner notes in English and German, and the sung text in the original Church Slavonic and in English |
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Format: CD / SACD Released: April 2010 Catalogue No.: ODE 1151-5 EAN/UPC Code: 0761195115152 |
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![]() This may be the finest performance on disc of Rachmaninov's (...) Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. The Latvian Radio Choir not only possesses the rich-colored tone (those altos!) and substantial vocal range (those basses!) (...), but also leaves no question as to its collective, deeply felt understanding of the meaning of the texts and of the overall service itself. Sergei Rachmaninov's setting of the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom - Eastern Christianity's common Eucharistic service liturgy - is regarded as one of the great cornerstones of 20th-century sacred music. This work of symphonic proportions was composed in the summer of 1910, in less than three weeks. After its completion, Rachmaninov wrote to a friend that he had been carried away by the project and that it had been a long time since he had written music with such pleasure. The outcome was judged by contemporary church officials as "...absolutely wonderful, even too beautiful... it is not church music." |