Shchedrin: The Sealed Angel

An interview with Rodion Shchedrin

Rodion Shchedrin (b. 1932): The Sealed Angel

DW: You have always said that choral music played a huge part in your musical education.

Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge / Geoffrey Webber director Choir of King’s College London / David Trendell director Geoffrey Webber conductor ( 1 , 2 , 6 , 7 , 9 ) David Trendell conductor ( 3 , 4 , 8 ) Marie Macklin soprano, Fiona Mackay alto, Benedict Hymas tenor ( 3 , 6 ) Emma Walshe soprano, Nina Kanter alto ( 7 ) Clare Wills oboe 1

I.

[5:20]

2

II.

[3:01]

3

III.

[8:42]

4

IV.

[8:32]

5

V.

[2:37]

6

VI.

[4:11]

7

VII.

[12:14]

8

VIII.

[4:19]

9

IX.

[5:39]

Total playing time

[54:42]

Recorded on 12-14 July 2008 in Worksop College Chapel Producer: Paul Baxter Engineer: Beth Mackay 24-bit digital editing & mastering: Paul Baxter

Language coach: Hannah Cooke Photography © Delphian Records Photograph editing: Raymond Parks Design: Drew Padrutt Booklet editor: John Fallas

RS: Yes, yes, very important. In 1944 when I was 12 years old and Stalin himself decided to open a choral school – he was a terrible tyrant but not stupid. Most choral schools, like I think in England, were attached to the church, in our case the Orthodox Church, and young men were recruited to join these choirs. However, the revolution wiped these schools out and in 1944 a great choral conductor called Alexander Sveshnikov, under Stalin’s instruction set up a choral school to encourage the revival of singing in Russia. It was funded by the state and I remember being admitted as a 2nd alto and later, when my voice broke, as a 1st bass. This school is still running today – the Moscow Academy of Choral Art, though I think they are now having trouble attracting students, people now want their sons to take jobs in banking!

DW: Presumably there was some competition for entry to the school?

Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk With thanks to Sally Groves, Yvonne SternCampo and Timothy Uglow

RS: We had a very strict audition, my parents were very poor and so very proud that I was to be part of this great institution. I remember I had lessons in piano, in violin, composition, but in other non-musical subjects too. But the greatest thing of all was the choir – we stood for one and a half

hours every day having singing exercises and singing works by the great composers, cantatas and motets by J.S. Bach, masses

by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert etc. And I have a diploma in choral conducting!

DW: How on earth did you get away with singing religious music?

RS: Oh but we sang these great works to new texts, awful, new, especially written words by terrible poets – about the wonderful weather, the birds singing, the grass growing, praising the Motherland – just terrible! But, it made me love this wonderful music and since then I have always loved the sound of a choir.

DW: Were you aware of the great Russian choral tradition at the time? I think you said you came from a religious family.

RS: Yes, despite the terrible difficulties in Russia as I was growing up in the 1930s my parents were religious and in fact my grandfather was a priest and I was secretly baptised! But of course all this was frowned upon, the Soviet line was most certainly atheism. We also had a fantastic choir, the Tsar State Choir, over 300 years old, singing the sacred music by Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Arensky … but of course we are not supposed to know about this.

DW: So had you always wanted to make a contribution to this great choral tradition?

RS: For many years, but for the great composers of the time, Shostakovich and Prokofiev for instance this was impossible, such religious feelings could be punished very seriously. They had to write choral works called ‘Hymn to Stalin’, ‘Hymn to Lenin’ and such things. I finished my work in 1988 and wanted to call it a ‘Russian Liturgy’ but knew even then that it would not have left my desk, despite perestroika, so not even a religious title. I had no commission and no choir in mind at all.

DW: And this accounts for the title The Sealed Angel and the connection with Leskov? – probably one of the least known Russian writers in the west, though of course we know the Shostakovich opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was based on a Leskov short story …

RS: Yes, I have always loved the Russian literature of the nineteenth century and many works have been inspired by Chekhov, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky and the like. You know, for many Russians Nikolai Leskov is perhaps the most Russian of all Russian writers – very difficult to translate into English. ‘The Sealed Angel’ is a very great story of old Russian craftsmen, of peasants

in the countryside. They are a community of believers that preserve a wonderful icon painted by a great icon painter called Sevatyan. The writings of Leskov can be very critical of the church but at the same time he wrote about ancient church legends and his books have much religious content as well as his deep-seated love of Russian people and folk tradition – and so you see, I have the connection between the two great traditions we have spoken of. Also, very important in the story is that even the most terrible persecution cannot kill beauty – the most important thing for me. It was Dostoyevsky who said ‘The world will be saved by beauty’.

* * * RS: It is true in England that some church choirs now have young girls to sing as well as boys?

DW: Yes, this started very recently in some of the major cathedral choirs and caused some consternation at first.

RS: In Russia, also until recently this was forbidden, also the use of musical instruments.

DW: Tell me a little about the accompaniment you use in The Sealed Angel.

RS: I knew that with a big work it would be very difficult for choirs to keep in pitch, but also I wanted to perhaps join two worlds that are very important to me, Russian religious tradition but also Russian folk tradition, the music of the church and music of the countryside, the Russian peasants that I heard around me as a boy.

DW: It is somewhat odd to record that The Sealed Angel later won an important Russian government award?

DW: Did you consider having a traditional Russian folk instrument to accompany the choir?

DW: And since then the piece has travelled a great deal – it’s obviously a piece that is very important to you.

RS: Yes, this is what I wanted but you know the instrument I wanted, a sort of Russian pipe, maybe like your recorder, would create pitch problems for the choir and is not able to play fast music, a very primitive but beautiful instrument, but many technical limitations.

So I decided to use perhaps the nearest Western equivalent, the oboe, but this can also be a flute.

DW: Despite the difficulties you mention, it was still a Russian choir that sang The Sealed Angel for the first time – this must have been quite an event for you …

RS: You know it was one of the happiest times of my life as a composer. Two Russian choirs, the Russian State Choir and the Moscow Chamber Choir, with Vladimir Minin, also a student from the same Moscow Choral School. More than 100 singers at the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow.

RS: Yes, Yeltsin himself presented me with the Russian State Prize for The Sealed Angel in 1992 – impossible to think of this happening not so long ago.

RS: Yes, The Sealed Angel has been sung by choirs in Russia, Germany, America, Scandinavia and Australia and this is why I am so happy about English choirs now singing my music. © 2009 David Wordsworth & Rodion Shchedrin David Wordsworth is a choral conductor and composer manager. He was Promotions Manager at Schott & Co from 1997-2003 and Head of Promotion at Oxford University Press between 2003 and 2008. He has been Music Director of the Addison Singers since 1995 and has recently guest-conducted in Italy, Poland, Holland and many parts of the UK and USA.

IV Егда славнии ученицы на умовении вечери просвещахуся, тогда Иуда злочестивый сребролюбием недуговав, омрачашеся и беззаконнам судиям Тебе, праведного судию, предает ... Виждь имений рачителю, сих ради удавления употребивша. Бежи несытая души, учителю таковая дерзнувшая ...

IV The disciples were illumined during the washing of feet at the Last Supper.

Ungodly Judas, darkened by his love for money, betrayed Thee, the righteous Judge, to lawless judges.

See how the lover of money has, for money’s sake, hanged himself.

Through death he was freed from the greed that made him dare to do such a thing against his Lord, who is good to all.

V Coro tacet

V Coro tacet

VI Покояние отверзи ми, Жизнодавче, покояние отверзи ми двери, Жизнодавче, храм весь осквернен ... На спасение стези, студными бо окалях душу грехами, избави мя от нечистоты. Множества содеянных, много лютых, окаянный, трепещу страшного дне судного, помилуй мя, Боже.

VI Repentance is open for me, O Life Giver.

Open the door for me.

The temple is defiled; on the path to salvation save my soul from sin and deliver me from uncleanliness.

Many shall come before Thee with trembling on the day of judgment.

Have mercy on me, God.

VII Да исправится молитва моя, як кадило пред тобою воздеяние руку моего,

VII Let my prayer be an atonement before Thee as incense, and may the lifting up of my hands

жертва вечерняя. Господи воззвах к Тебе, услыши мя, вонми гласу моления моего внегда воззвати. Не уклони сердце мое в словеса лукавствия, непщевати вины о гресех. Душе моя востани, что спиши ..? Конец приближается и имаши смутитися, воспряни убо, да пощадить тя Христос.

be an evening sacrifice.

Lord I have cried out unto Thee; hear me and give ear to the voice of my prayer when I call upon Thee.

Do not incline my heart toward evil.

What? Are you sleeping? Arise, my soul.

The end is approaching, have mercy on me, Christ.

VIII Истинно ... Да святится Имя Твое, да приидет царствие Твое, да будет воля Твоя, яко на небеси и на земли ... Хлеб наш насущный даждь нам днесть, и остави нам долги наша, якоже и мы оставляем должникам нашим, и не введи нас во искушение, но избави нас от лукавого ... Истинно ...

VIII Truly.

Hallowed be Thy Name.

The kingdom and Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

Hallowed be Thy name and Thy Kingdom.

Truly.

IX Истинно ... Ангел господень, да пролиются слезы твоя, аможе схощеши ... Истинно ...

IX Truly.

Angel of God, let your tears flow.

May I enter into your presence.

Truly.

Translation from Church Slavonic by Lilliana Branitski and Veronica Falk By permission of Schott Music Ltd

Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge Caius College Choir is one of Britain’s leading collegiate choirs. The College was founded in 1348 but the musical tradition stems from the late nineteenth century, when the well-known church music composer Charles Wood became Organist. The choir in Wood’s day contained boy trebles; it is now a mixed undergraduate ensemble and is directed by Geoffrey Webber.

The Choir sings Chapel services during the University term and has a busy schedule of additional activities including concerts, recordings and broadcasts. It travels extensively abroad, performing at a variety of venues ranging from major concert halls to universities, cathedrals and churches in Europe, America and beyond, often in collaboration with other professional ensembles such as Opera Northern Ireland, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra of San Francisco, and the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine. The Choir also gives a number of concerts in the UK each year, and has made appearances at St John’s Smith Square, the Spitalfields Festival and the Aldeburgh Festival, and at many other concert halls and festivals around the country.

Live radio broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and 4 form a regular feature of the Choir’s schedule.

Broadcasts of Choral Evensong have been

notably adventurous in content and have ranged from Baroque anthems performed with period instruments to Russian and Greek Orthodox music, South African music, and music composed especially for the Choir by leading British composers such as James MacMillan. The Choir has also made television appearances on BBC1, BBC2, Channel 4 and on several foreign networks.

date has yielded two further early/modern collections (Haec Dies: Byrd and the Tudor revival, DCD34104, and a disc of contemporary and medieval carols, DCD34075), two CDs of church music by Restoration composers (William Turner, DCD34028, and Michael Wise,

The Choir’s recordings have often specialised in the rediscovery of forgotten choral repertories, including previously unpublished music from within the English choral tradition and beyond. A series of highly acclaimed CDs has included music by British composers Samuel Wesley, William Child, Edmund Rubbra, Patrick Hadley, John Sanders, Mansel Thomas and Rebecca Clarke, and by Joseph Rheinberger, Giacomo Puccini, Leonardo Leo and Charles Gounod, as well as three programmes of Swiss choral music in conjunction with the National Library of Zurich. The Choir has also recorded the complete anthems of Charles Wood, two reconstructions – the Latin Mass in E flat by Janácek and J.S. Bach’s St Mark Passion – and a disc of modern and medieval vocal music entitled All the ends of the earth.

It now has an immensely successful recording relationship with Delphian Records, which to

The Choir of King’s College London is one of the most highly acclaimed mixed-voice university choirs in England. Founded in its present form in 1945, it consists of about 25 undergraduates from many different faculties who are awarded choral scholarships. King’s College, part of the University of London, was itself founded in 1829.

DCD34041), and a highly acclaimed disc of choral music by Judith Weir (DCD34095), BBC Music Magazine’s ‘Choral & Song Choice’ for December 2011. www.cai.cam.ac.uk/college/choir

Choir of King’s College London

Besides providing music for the services in the magnificent (and recently restored) Scottdesigned Chapel at King’s, the choir has a burgeoning reputation outside the College, particularly for its performances of Renaissance polyphony. Its recording of music by the sixteenth-century Spanish composer Alonso Lobo received very favourable reviews, BBC Music Magazine writing of an ‘astonishing’ performance of Lobo’s Lamentations, ‘by a choir as passionate as it is disciplined’.

A subsequent (2000) recording of John Taverner’s Missa Corona spinea and motets by William Byrd was nominated for Gramophone’s Early Music Award. Recent recordings include music by Sebastian de Vivanco for Sanctuary Gaudeamus and a disc of Advent music for Herald. In addition, the choir has made three recordings of music by the French Dominican priest André Gouzes, the latest being music for an office for St Thérèse of Lisieux.

The choir has given many concerts, both in England and abroad. In recent years, it has also toured France, USA, Italy (where it was a prizewinner at the Concorso Guido d’Arezzo in 2001), Ireland and Portugal. The choir has also broadcast for BBC Radio 3 Choral Evensong, Radio 4 and the World Service. www.kcl.ac.uk/choir

Geoffrey Webber

David Trendell

Clare Wills

Geoffrey Webber began his musical education as a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral, and after being Music Scholar at The King’s School, Worcester, he was elected to an Organ Scholarship at New College, Oxford in 1977. At Oxford his academic tutors and organ teachers included Edward Higginbottom, John Caldwell, James Dalton, Nicholas Danby and Gillian Weir. After graduating with a First he remained in Oxford to pursue research into German church music of the seventeenth century, combining this with activities as an organist and conductor. He served as Acting Organist at both New College and Magdalen College, and was appointed Assisting Organist at Magdalen College in 1982 and University Organist and Director of Music at the University Church in 1984. During this time he also became Director of the Edington Festival, a festival of music within the liturgy at Edington, Wiltshire.

After completing his doctorate in 1989 he was appointed Precentor and Director of Music at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, and he now also serves as an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Music, dividing his time between conducting, organ playing, lecturing, teaching, editing and research projects. He is a committee member for the Royal College of Organists and the Church Music Society, and his publications include North German Church Music in the Age of Buxtehude (OUP, 1996) and, as co-editor, the Cambridge Companion to the Organ (CUP, 1998) and The Restoration Anthem (CMS/OUP, 2003/7).

David Trendell received his early musical education as a chorister at Norwich Cathedral, and was later an alto choral scholar there before going up to Oxford as Organ Scholar of Exeter College. Subsequently, he embarked upon research into the works of Alexander Zemlinsky whilst serving as Assistant Organist at Winchester College. He has directed the Choir of King’s College London since 1992, and he is currently Senior Lecturer in the Music Department at King’s.

Clare Wills read music at Pembroke College, Cambridge before winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, where she now studies oboe with Celia Nicklin and cor anglais with Jill Crowther. At Cambridge, she was an Instrumental Award scholar and member of the University Chamber Orchestra, and she also completed the part-time RAM affiliate scheme. Clare has taken part in several masterclasses as well as playing in the RAM Concert Orchestra and Manson Ensemble. She was recently awarded Very Highly Commended in the Nicholas Blake Chamber Music prize with the Alio Oboe Trio, and she has toured as a soloist with the Amadeus Orchestra in China.

Future projects include a performance of MarkAnthony Turnage’s Scorched with the London Contemporary Orchestra.

Trendell is also Director of Music at the Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London, where he directs a professional octet of young singers, many of whom are former King’s choral scholars. His current research interests are based in the sixteenth century and include the recusant music of William Byrd, music of the post-Josquin generation and its influence in England, Spanish and Mexican polyphony (especially the music of Alonso Lobo, which he has edited and performed extensively), and the interpretation of The Song of Songs in sixteenth-century motets. He has lectured as far afield as Portland, Oregon (USA), Beirut and Jerusalem, presented a number of programmes for BBC Radio 3 and regularly lectures and runs choral workshops in the USA and in England. He has also produced a number of recordings for ensembles including The Clerkes’ Group, the Oxford Camerata, Schola Cantorum of Oxford and the Maîtrise de Caen.

Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge Choir of King’s College London Sopranos Rachel Bagnall, Claire Bradder, Victoria CarseJones, Charlotte Fairbairn, Cerian Holland, Emma Hopegood, Nina Kanter, Helen Lewis, Marie-Claire Lindsay, Marie Macklin, Laura Nakhla, Tempe Nell, Sarah Rowley, Kate Sproule, Madeleine Teague, Verity TrynkaWatson, Emma Walshe Altos Laura Baker, Rupert Enticknap, Daisy Evans, Judith Hutchinson, Cara Lewis, Fiona Mackay, Richard Northcott, Amy Payne, Emily Skinner, Eva Weig, Ellie Westgarth-Flynn Tenors Henry Bevan, Rupert Charlesworth, Aidan Coburn, Sam Dressel, Jack Furness, Louis d’Heudières, Benedict Hymas, Nicholas Maw, Charles Ogilvie, Laurence Panter, James Taylor Basses Patrick Allies, David Ballantyne, Jonathan Coates, Christopher Dollins, Matthew Fletcher, Lawrence Keegan-Fischer, John Kelly, Hugh Miall, Sam Pantcheff, Matthew Ralph, George Sleightholme, Edward Willis Low basses [guests] Paul Grier, John Heighway, Adrian Hutton

Also available on Delphian Deutsche Motette Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge; The Choir of King’s College London Geoffrey Webber & David Trendell conductors DCD34124

William Turner (1651–1740): Sacred Choral Music Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge; Yorkshire Baroque Soloists Geoffrey Webber conductor DCD34028

Delphian’s superchoir reunites after its highly successful recording of The Sealed Angel, this time for a unique programme of German music from Schubert to Richard Strauss. Strauss’s sumptuous Deutsche Motette is the last word in late Romantic choral opulence, its teeming polyphony brought to thrilling life by this virtuoso cast of over sixty singers. The rest of the programme explores the vivid colours and shadowy half-lights of a distinctly German music that reached its culmination in Strauss’s extravagant masterpiece. The singing throughout combines a musical intensity and imagination with an understanding of period style, two qualities that are hallmarks of both choirs’ work.

It is easy to forget that our great English choral tradition was once silenced

by Act of Parliament. The subsequent restoration of the monarchy in 1660 ushered in one of the finest periods of English music, and William Turner, in 1660 a precocious nine-year-old, went on to become one of the best-known composers and singers of his day. This disc presents a cross-section of his sacred music, including several premiere recordings. ‘invigorating and highly persuasive … a reminder of the still unknown riches of English Baroque music’ – Gramophone, October 2007

New in July 2013 Allegri: Missae ‘In lectulo meo’ & ‘Christus resurgens’, Miserere, Motets The Choir of King’s College London / David Trendell DCD34103

Michael Wise (c.1648–1687): Sacred Choral Music Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge / Geoffrey Webber DCD34041

Gregorio Allegri deserves better than for his reputation to rest on just one piece. Alongside his iconic Miserere, which never fails to cast its spell on listeners, the Choir of King’s College London presents premiere performances of two of his five surviving masses, richly wrought with consummate skill in Palestrina’s prima prattica, and of their originating motets. These radiant performances shed new light on a much-loved composer.

Chastised for ‘excesses in his life and conversation’, Michael Wise lived a notoriously dissolute life which ended when he was hit about the head and ‘kill’d downright’ by the night-watchman of Salisbury Cathedral. Thus was St Paul’s robbed of its forthcoming Master of the Choristers, and history of one of the period’s most prolific and accomplished composers. Geoffrey Webber and his choir pay testament to the more respectable music-making that is Wise’s legacy.

‘David Trendell’s fine choir glows with warmth and commitment’ – The Observer, May 2012

‘The music bears all the artistry of its time – unpretentious homophony sprinkled with evocative chromaticism’ – The Scotsman, June 2008

Judith Weir: Choral Music Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge / Geoffrey Webber DCD34095

Into this World this Day did come: carols contemporary & medieval Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge / Geoffrey Webber DCD34075

This first recording devoted entirely to Judith Weir’s choral music comprises her complete works to date for unaccompanied choir or choir with one instrument (trombone and marimba as well as the more usual organ). Tracking her evolving relationship with the medium from her earliest liturgical commission to the most recent, premiered in 2009, it also includes several secular pieces and her two solo organ works, which are now established classics of the repertoire.

The athleticism, intensity and clarity that mark out Geoffrey Webber’s choir are ideally suited to this strikingly original, approachable and fascinating music.

Another intriguing and unusual programme combines English works from the 12th to 16th centuries with medievally-inspired carols by some of our finest living composers. From the plangent innocence of William Sweeney’s The Innumerable Christ to the shining antiphony of Diana Burrell’s Creator of the Stars of Night, this selection will seduce and enchant. The choir combines polish with verve, and Webber’s meticulous attention to detail is floodlit by the bathing acoustics of St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast.

‘Delphian’s recording is ideal, with the resonance never drowning the detail … The singing of Geoffrey Webber’s choir is faultless’ – The Arts Desk, October 2011

‘stunning … an unflinching modern sound with an irresistible spiritual dimension’ – Norman Lebrecht, www.scena.org, December 2009

Haec Dies: Byrd & the Tudor revival Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge / Geoffrey Webber DCD34104

In the Beginning Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas & Peter Phillips DCD34072

In this highly original programme, the Choir of Gonville & Caius College explores the fascinating relationship between 16th- and early 20th-century music as understood by the pioneers of the Tudor revival in England. Centring on Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices – revelatory and influential listening for a whole host of later composers – this mosaic of reworkings, reimaginings and lovingly crafted homages is brought to life with all the scholarly acumen and full-throated fervour that we have come to expect from one of Britain’s finest choirs.

The new Choir of Merton College, Oxford is rapidly emerging as a major force in collegiate music. Its debut recording – bookended by Gabriel Jackson’s ravishing version of the rarely set Johannine Prologue and Copland’s glowing account of the first seven days of creation – makes inventive play with the theme of ‘beginnings’, in a sequence of Renaissance and modern classics that reflects the range and reach of the choir’s daily repertoire. All is captured in sumptuous sound in the radiant acoustic of Merton’s famous chapel.

‘The choir sounds responsive and light in texture … The contours of this music might be Tudor, but the autumnal sensibility is pure late Romantic’ – The Times, July 2012 ‘A brilliantly conceived disc … Under Geoffrey Webber’s sure direction [the choir] clearly relishes every moment with both precision and passion’ – International Record Review, September 2012

‘… will undoubtedly establish them as one of the UK’s finest choral ensembles. Listening to their superb performances and seamless blending of voices, it’s hard to believe that the choir is only four years old’ – Gramophone, December 2011, editor’s choice

DCD34067