SERGEI RACHMANINOFF - ALL NIGHT VIGIL
The Clarion Choir has released their fourth recording, Rachmainoff's All-Night Vigil. In one of his greatest works, Rachmaninoff sets to music the All-Night Vigil, an evening service comprising Vespers, Matins, and First Hour. The Vigil gradually moves towards daybreak, symbolizing the Resurrection of Christ. On this recording, The Clarion Choir also performs several of the ancient Znameny and Kievan chants on which Rachmaninoff based his fifteen-movement composition.
Rachmaninoff All Night Vigil ('Vespers')
The Clarion Choir
Soloists: Glenn Miller, bass, Oliver Mercer, tenor,
Mikki Sodergren, alto, Jessica Beebe, soprano,
John Ramseyer, tenor, Raha Mirzadegan, soprano,
Nacole Palmer soprano, Jonathan Woody, bass
Steven Fox, conductor
GRAMMY® nomination - Best Choral Performance
Debuted at #2 on Billboard Traditional Classical Charts
Featured in The New York Times and BBC Music Magazine
Recording of the Month, MusicWeb International
5 Diapasons in Diapason (France)
Purchase All Night Vigil
Purchase"[Fox] and Clarion have presented the Vespers often at New Year in New York and recorded it beautifully for Pentatone."
- James Oestreich, The New York Times
Read an interview with artistic director Steven Fox in BBC Music Magazine on this new recording.
"Fox has lived with the work for over 20 years, gaining an intimate understanding of its ever-changing textures... Fox 'plays' his choir, moulding the 32 singers into a single expressive instrument, attuned to his silkily nuanced dynamics and careful husbanding of climaxes...Lovingly sculpted, the refulgent soundscapes glow."
- BBC Music Magazine
"Celebrating the 150th year of Sergei Rachmaninoff's birth, the Clarion Choir and Artistic Director Steven Fox present a seminal treatment of the composer's All Night Vigil, Op. 37 “Vespers”(1915). Recorded at NYC's Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in January 2020, the choir's rendering mesmerizes for the full measure of its seventy-four minutes."
– Textura
"The result here is impressive, enchanting in many places and with unspectacular noblesse. The Clarion Choir designs the adapted and newly composed prayers with intellectual clarity and transparency."
- Roland H. Dippel, Concerti (Germany)
"Steven Fox, leader of the Clarion Choir, has been living with this music for more than 20 years, and the choir’s exquisite performance on this new recording evidences artistic understanding and scholarship as much as it does musical feeling and skill.
One of the great achievements (and pleasures) of the All-Night Vigil is the organization of the moving parts - voices stepping up or down against a bed of other voices holding steady, small glidings up or down where you wouldn't expect them, individual voices breaking against the flow, and choir sections emerging in different colors, as if through a prism. Under Fox's leadership, and with the benefit of excellent acoustics and top-notch production, The Clarion Choir makes a crowning statement with this release."
- Jon Sobel, blogcritics.org, Jan 2023
"The 32-member strong New York based Clarion Choir impress on the work just the right level of pious stoicism it calls for, whilst the crystal clarity and perfectly gauged blend of their voices as in Rejoice, O Virgin, permeates the music with all-embracing light."
- Jean-Ives Duperron, Classical Music Sentinel, Jan 2023
"The Clarion Choir shines in every way, with a control of breath and phrasing which amazes, and a range of dynamics always at the service of the word."
- Jerónimo Marín, RITMO, 5- star review for All-Night Vigil by The Clarion Choir and Steven Fox
Director Steven Fox forges a distinctive sound in which quieter passages are quite delicate. These contrast sharply with the almost gravelly vocal textures usually heard in the work, but in climactic passages, he gives the group a fascinating kind of focused power that carries a good deal of ecstatic emotion."
- ArkivMusic
Alexander Kastalsky - Requiem
Alexander Kastalsky was a student of Tchaikovsky and a mentor to Rachmaninov, becoming director of the Moscow Synodal School until the Bolshevik regime banned all sacred music, including the extraordinary Requiem for Fallen Brothers which consequently lay forgotten for over a century. The Requiem is a rich and varied mosaic that honours those who perished in the First World War, poignantly combining Orthodox and Gregorian chant with hymns from the allied nations, even including Rock of Ages. This unprecedented and peerless monument to those who made the ultimate sacrifice was acclaimed on its 1917 premiere as a ‘uniquely Russian requiem that… gave musical voice to the tears of many nations’.
Kastalsky Requiem
Anna Dennis, soprano - Joseph Beutel, bass-baritone
The Clarion Choir - Cathedral Choral Society
The Saint Tikhon Choir - Kansas City Chorale
Orchestra of St. Luke's - Leonard Slatkin, conductor
Billboard #1 Traditional Classical Album (September 2020)
GRAMMY® nominations - Best Choral Performance
- Producer of the Year, Classical
BBC Music Magazine - Five Stars (2020)
International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) nomination - Choral Music (2021)
Opera News - Critic's Choice (January 2021)
Purchase Kastalsky Requiem
"The three soloists and four choirs involved have really grasped what is needed to communicate this complex work, and Slatkin's driven direction of the Orchestra of St. Luke's means that the tension never lets up. It may have had to wait until now to be revealed to audiences but this is an extraordinary work and this fine recording will, I am convinced, ensure that it acquires a permanent place in the repertoire."
- Ivan Moody, Gramophone, 2020
"The cumulative effect of the hour-long piece is potent. Kastalsky’s ineluctable Russianness is, in the end, the pervasive spirit of the work, but his embrace of world traditions in the name of peace is truly visionary... it’s heartfelt, profound and consistently beautiful. Leonard Slatkin masterfully marshals the large forces, including the renowned Orchestra of St. Luke’s (in top form here) for the loving resurrection of this important piece."
- Joshua Rosenblum, Opera News, 2020
"Leonard Slatkin and his first-rate team of musicians now present the first complete recording [of Kastalsky's Requiem]...a touching performance."
- Daniel Jaffe, BBC Music Magazine, 2020
"This is essential listening! Conductor Leonard Slatkin does a superb job holding and melding together a variety of choirs, and leading the Orchestra of St. Luke's... An offbeat work that was well worth retrieving from the scrap heap of history..."
- James Manheim, AllMusic, 2020
Alexander Kastalsky - Memory Eternal
Released in 2018, this is the world premiere recording of Alexander Kastalsky's Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes. The work was written in 1917 to honor those who lost their lives in the First World War. As the leader of the Moscow Synodal School of Church Singing, Kastalsky was an important influence on Gretchaninoff, Chesnokov and Rachmaninoff, among many others. This work, written at the height of his career, consists of hymns from the Russian Orthodox Memorial Service (Panihida). Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes and the three short sacred pieces that end the programme reveal Kastalsky’s masterful use of choral sonority and color, his weaving of complex polyphonic textures, and his graceful use of ancient chant melodies.
Kastalsky Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes
The Clarion Choir
Fr. Leonid Roschko, bass/deacon
Steven Fox, conductor
GRAMMY® nomination - Best Choral Performance
Gramophone Editor's Choice
BBC Music Magazine Five Stars for Performance
Five Stars for Production (Nov 2018)
MusicWeb International Recording of the Month (Oct 2018)
Purchase Kastalsky Memory Eternal
'It used to be that Russian choirs had the edge in recording material from that country, but New York's Clarion Choir has gotten the drop on them with a world premiere of music by Alexander Kastalsky. The sound, from New York's St. Jean Baptiste Roman Catholic Church, is all that could be desired.'
- James Mannheim, AllMusic
'The Clarion Choir's performance is as ardently passionate as it is immaculate in its balance and pacing...[a] hugely admirable project.'
- Jeremy Pound, BBC Music Magazine, Oct 2018
‘The rehabilitation of a major work; this is music powerfully rooted in the Russian sound world, sung with passion, and beautifully recorded.
The Clarion Choir, under the sure direction of Steven Fox, turn in a thrilling performance, recorded with clarity and not too much resonance in St Jean Baptiste Church in New York.’
- Ivan Moody, Gramophone, 2018
'The flawless ensemble of The Clarion Choir, under the inspirational direction of Steven Fox, has been perfectly captured in this demonstration class recording. … I can think of no better advocates for this wonderful music than this superb choral ensemble. I shall have no hesitation in nominating this stunning recording as one of my choices of the year.'
- Stephen Greenbank, MusicWeb International, Sept 2018
'This is a superlative performance. Steven Fox is an exemplary leader of his forces, and all three soloists render their parts ably. The recorded sound is crystal clear…'
- James A. Altena, Fanfare, Jan 2019
Maximillian Steinberg - Passion Week
This groundbreaking recording was made shortly before The Clarion Choir returned this masterpiece to Russia, where it was written in 1923. Clarion gave the New York premiere of this previously lost choral work in 2014, the Russian premiere performances in St. Petersburg's Grand Philharmonic Hall and Moscow's Church for the Immaculate Conception in 2016, and the UK premiere at the Royal Academy of Music, also in 2016.
Steinberg Passion Week The Clarion Choir Steven Fox, conductor GRAMMY® nomination - Best Choral Performance BBC Music Magazine nomination - Annual Choral Award (2017) Diapason - 5 de Diapason (2017) BBC Music Magazine Choral and Song Choice (2016) American Record Guide Critic's Choice (2016)
Purchase Steinberg Passion Week
'Written for the Russian Orthodox Church in the early 1920s by Shostakovich's composition teacher Maximilian Steinberg, this profoundly beautiful choral piece lay forgotten for over 90 years. Performed here with breathtaking sensitivity by an outstanding New York-based choir, it emerges as a work of equal stature to Rachmaninov's justly acclaimed Vespers. A wondful discovery.'
- BBC Music Magazine, 2017
'... Clarion's handsome voices and the maestro's Slavic sensibilities honor Steinberg's intentions with grand singing and total conviction.'
- Philip Greenfield, American Record Guide, Nov 2016
'The sound here is so full, so sating, that I often forget that I’m listening to an a cappella recording, and when I realize it, I’m in awe at what a collection of human voices can pull off without any instrumental accompaniment ... it is awesome.'
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- James Bennett, WQXR, 2020.
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