Song of Cherubim (Iže cheruvimi)
Opis materiału
Song of Cherubim was one of the three works dedicated by Penderecki to
Mstislav Rostropovich. Unlike the other two, Per Slava and Largo,
this gift for the great musician’s 60th birthday was meant as a piece for the
cellist “to listen to” rather than play. Penderecki’s tribute to his Russian
friend was also a tribute to Russian Orthodox culture – a composition for choir
with which, 15 years after Utrenya,
he returned in his music to the Eastern liturgical tradition that he would later
revisit in the Hymn to St. Daniil and
more recently in the Old Church Slavonic language version of De Profundis from The Seven Gates of Jerusalem.
In the Song of Cherubim, these references to Eastern liturgy are far more ecumenical than in the second part of Utrenya. The song is a kind of syncretic fantasy on the subject of Eastern Orthodox music. The composer arranged the liturgical hymn to the Holy Trinity ascribed to St. John Chrysostom, looking back to his memories of the sung liturgy he had heard during his stay in Serbia. Apparently, the Song of Cherubim was to become part of a still-unwritten Serbian mass (complementing Utrenya with its Bulgarian sources).
What remains of this large-scale design is, however, a single song with transparent textures, majestic but not pompous in expression, bringing to mind the aura and character of Orthodox church music. Its four-part structure is determined by the text. In the first part, we hear the “song of the angels” (“We, who mystically represent the Cherubim, and chant the thrice-holy hymn to the Life-giving Trinity”). The theme smoothly ascends in seconds as the narration leads through various textures and singing techniques, from tonality to atonality and back. The held notes and the syllabically articulated parlando of the bass are the composer’s most direct references to Eastern Orthodox choral traditions.
The local culmination in four voices leads to the second part, in which the congregation sings in common rhythm (“Let us set aside the cares of life”). The third part (“That we may receive the King of all, who comes invisibly escorted by the Divine Hosts”) leads to the culmination proper, in 12 voices. The fourth part, the mystical “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!”, recapitulates the ideas from previous parts, and in the end the 12 independent voices are brought together in a fading unison.
In the Song of Cherubim, these references to Eastern liturgy are far more ecumenical than in the second part of Utrenya. The song is a kind of syncretic fantasy on the subject of Eastern Orthodox music. The composer arranged the liturgical hymn to the Holy Trinity ascribed to St. John Chrysostom, looking back to his memories of the sung liturgy he had heard during his stay in Serbia. Apparently, the Song of Cherubim was to become part of a still-unwritten Serbian mass (complementing Utrenya with its Bulgarian sources).
What remains of this large-scale design is, however, a single song with transparent textures, majestic but not pompous in expression, bringing to mind the aura and character of Orthodox church music. Its four-part structure is determined by the text. In the first part, we hear the “song of the angels” (“We, who mystically represent the Cherubim, and chant the thrice-holy hymn to the Life-giving Trinity”). The theme smoothly ascends in seconds as the narration leads through various textures and singing techniques, from tonality to atonality and back. The held notes and the syllabically articulated parlando of the bass are the composer’s most direct references to Eastern Orthodox choral traditions.
The local culmination in four voices leads to the second part, in which the congregation sings in common rhythm (“Let us set aside the cares of life”). The third part (“That we may receive the King of all, who comes invisibly escorted by the Divine Hosts”) leads to the culmination proper, in 12 voices. The fourth part, the mystical “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!”, recapitulates the ideas from previous parts, and in the end the 12 independent voices are brought together in a fading unison.
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