[ Chandos / CD ]
Release Date: Monday 1 October 2001
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Deisus performs Russian devotional music of the Middle Ages
- a fascinating historical survey of medieval Russian church music.
Many of the chants performed here are unique and in some cases there are no known attempts to decipher the ancient notation other than those especially made by musicologists in order to broaden the repertoire of the choir Deisus.
Deisus came into being when Sergey Krivobokov and Yevgeny Safronov decided to revive the Old Russian tradition of church singing. The choir consists of fourteen professional singers whose primary objective is to familiarise listeners and specialists with unknown traditional church music.
In the course of their thousand-year history the canonical texts were treated in different ways: in the early period as monophonic (music which consists of melody only) and later as polyphonic (music in more than one part) chants. The structure of the Orthodox divine service - its sublimity; the leisurely pace of the ritual; the narrative tone of the liturgical readings - undoubtedly influenced the character of the chants that formed part of the church ceremony.
The poetic text always played the leading role in this and the relationship of melody to text was governed by understanding the subordinate role of the melody and the functional significance of the music as a whole. All this taken together determined the art of the chant writers, who were able to interpret the poetry of the liturgical texts in different singing traditions.
The tradition of monophonic church singing came to Russia from Byzantium as the most important aspect of the divine service. Sometimes in these ancient chants it seems
as though it might be possible to hear the voices of those nameless Greek singers, and through them the vast Byzantine world and the world of Christendom to which Russia has always been specially connected. Through this sense of common humanity the listener can derive great meaning from these simple monophonic chants.
1 Joachim and Anna 2:20
2 As a previously barren land 2:14
3 Maidenhood alien to mothers 3:13
4 On this important day 8:13
5 Radiant is this joyful day 5:47
6 This day the congregations of the faithful 7:54
7 The Angels, seeing the entrance of the most pure Maiden 3:55
8 This day to the church comes the most immaculate Maiden 3:21
9 Let the heavens be joyful 6:57
10 Like the icon given life by God 3:34
11 We exclaim to you with the voice of the Archangel 1:03
12 So that the mystery might be revealed 5:36
13 When, O Virgin Maid 9:46
14 On your immortal assumption 5:01