Monday , March 18 2024
benedict sheehan vespers

Music Review: The Saint Tikhon Choir – ‘Benedict Sheehan: Vespers’

“Synthesis…was my starting point.” So writes composer and choir director Benedict Sheehan in his liner notes to Benedict Sheehan: Vespers, the outstanding new album from the Saint Tikhon Choir and Cappella Records. Steeped in the Orthodox liturgical tradition, Sheehan conducts a choir founded in 2015 to “foster and build up the American Orthodox choral tradition at the highest artistic level.”

His Vespers synthesizes traditional Russian Orthodox chants and melodies with exceptional multi-part choral writing. With this hourlong 13-part recording, Sheehan and the Saint Tikhon Choir make a tremendous contribution not merely to the Orthodox musical repertoire but to American choral music writ large.

Choral settings of Vespers (the evening office of the Orthodox church) are nothing new. In fact, the composer took particular inspiration from Rachmaninoff’s 1915 setting, the All-Night Vigil. (Bach’s Cantatas provide a more familiar context for extended liturgical choral music.) Sheehan integrates melodies and rhythms from traditional Vespers psalms and prayers, Byzantine Chant motifs, and Russian Common Chant with his own distinct (and distinctly American) style.

The choral and solo writing is strikingly beautiful and emotionally gripping. Listeners need not have any knowledge of the Orthodox church to get swept up in this music.

Video still from sainttikhonchoir.org

It features transcendent harmonies and sublime solo voices. The latter range from soprano Fotina Naumenko (“O Gladsome Light”) and countertenor Timothy Parsons (“The Lord Is King | Psalm 92”) to the astoundingly deep-voiced Glenn Miller (“The Song of Simeon”).

The liner notes provide a solid introduction to the Orthodox liturgical tradition and Sheehan’s engagement with it – right down to where individual chants originated. The “Opening Psalm | Psalm 103,” for example, is “based on a bold and lively irregular meter chant from the ancient Vaalam Monastery, founded in the 14th century in Karelia [a region today divided between Russia and Finland] on the shores of Lake Ladoga.”

The recording is clean, balanced, and dimensional, like the other Cappella Records releases I’ve reviewed – Hymns of Kassianí and Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia. Listen with good headphones or on a high quality stereo system to experience the full richness. Benedict Sheehan: Vespers is a rich treat for the ear and for the mind. I can’t recommend it highly enough for anyone with a love of choral music or an interest in liturgical music.

About Jon Sobel

Jon Sobel is Publisher and Executive Editor of Blogcritics as well as lead editor of the Culture & Society section. As a writer he contributes most often to Music, where he covers classical music (old and new) and other genres, and Culture, where he reviews NYC theater. Through Oren Hope Marketing and Copywriting at http://www.orenhope.com/ you can hire him to write or edit whatever marketing or journalistic materials your heart desires. Jon also writes the blog Park Odyssey at http://parkodyssey.blogspot.com/ where he is on a mission to visit every park in New York City. He has also been a part-time working musician, including as lead singer, songwriter, and bass player for Whisperado.

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