Edinburgh Festival Chorus: Alexandr Grechaninov Passion Week
Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 15/8/24
Edinburgh Festival Chorus, James Grossmith, chorus director, Zsuzsana Cerveni, alto, David Lee, tenor
This late night performance by the Edinburgh Festival Chorus of ‘Passion Week’ by Russian composer, Alexandr Grechaninov (1864-1956) is an undoubted Festival highlight. Written in 1912, but never heard again in Russia after its composer fled to the West, until the 1990s under glasnost, it remains little known, with one 2007 Chandos recording of the Phoenix Bach Choir and Kansas City Chorale under Charles Bruffy. I’m grateful to the Chandos online sleeve notes by Vladimir Morosan for information used in this review.
The phrase ‘little-known masterpiece’ is a staple of arts marketing, but this is the real thing. Drawing on the polyphonic choral traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church, as sung by male voices including trebles, Grechaninov’s thirteen movements for mixed voices follow the liturgy of Holy Week, with influences from traditional hymns but also from Wagner and late romantic composers. Russia had no tradition of sacred musical forms being used for secular performances, as in western masses from Palestrina through to Haydn, Mozart and beyond. So ‘Passion Week’ is as revolutionary in its concept and execution as Bach’s 18th century ‘Passions’ and Golijov’s 21st century ‘Pasion’ which we heard 10 days ago.
From the opening “Alleluias” the unaccompanied choir under chorus director James Grossmith gives a compelling performance. Taking their pitches from a single piped note at the start of each section, their multi-layered singing remains consistently forceful during the hymn-like chorales, and effectively nuanced in pace in more emotional sections. The text, which has very little narrative, is a prayerful commentary on the events of the week. Christ’s reaction to the Good Thief, (referred to here as “the wise thief”) who was crucified beside him and sought his forgiveness, becomes a recurrent motif within the text and the music. “Today you shall be with me in Paradise’ is the message of hope moving from Holy Week to Easter.
Two choir members are the soloists, alto Zsuzsuna Cerveni presenting a clear plainchant version of the Beatitudes while the choir, seated, delivers the response “Remember us, Oh Lord,” growing in certainty until the impassioned final “Remember us, Oh Lord, when you come into your Kingdom.” As in Golijov’s ‘Pasion’ the words of Christ are delivered by both female and male soloists. David Lee is surrounded by a small semi-chorus of women when he asks God to help him, ‘May my prayers be set before you like incense,’ the words from Psalm 51 fitting Christ’s anguish in Gethsemane, and his voice making itself heard against the dissonant voices of the women.
One of the joys of Slavic singing is the power of the basses. The men of the Festival Chorus stand in a column in the middle of the choir: when the lowest voices provide a diminuendo echo at the end of a phrase, we hear its full spine-tingling effect. Later short rhythmic phrases by the male voices sound a brisk march under the women’s voices in the dramatic section ‘The Noble Joseph.’ The work ends in polyphonic splendour in a double chorus with the two sides of the choir picking up the canon in, at least, eight parts, before the final rousing “Alleluia.”
The EIF and the Festival Chorus are to be congratulated on a performance which will live long in the memory and which more fully captures the music of the Orthodox tradition than any performance I’ve sampled online. It is received with complete attention by the audience. However I must question the EIF’s strange decision to present ‘Passion Week’ in a late night concert, advertised with the tag “Find yourself a beanbag and lose yourself in the hypnotic sound.” Around 200 on beanbags and as many in the circle saw this work in an auditorium seating 2,200.
Photo Credit: Andrew Perry
