The music of Pavel Chesnokov (1877-1944) is well known in the Orthodox choral world but far less well outside it. He had a thorough musical training over the course of his childhood and studied composition with Taneyev, Ippolitov-Ivanov and Conus, and as well as being a very prolific composer was a highly respected choir director. In 1944 his thoroughgoing The Choir and How to Direct was published and (surprisingly) proved a great success.

To my knowledge, this is the first recording dedicated exclusively to Chesnokov’s work by British singers, and it provides an excellent showcase for his work, in chronological order. It begins with an 1897 setting of the Cherubic Hymn from the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, and follows this with three of his best-known works, Spaseniye sodelal (‘Salvation is Created’), Angel vopiyashe (‘The Angel Cried Out’) and O Tebe raduyetsia (‘All of Creation Rejoices’), before a sequence of 10 settings from the All-Night Vigil of 1912. The performances really project the drama of these works (try the startling ‘Svetisya, svetisya’ from Angel vopiyashe, for example). Like Rachmaninov, Chesnokov wanders in and out of chant melodies – this was the period at which entire repertories of Russian monophonic chant were being rediscovered in parallel with the innovative choral style, the ‘New Trend’ developed by these composers, Kastalsky and others – and, in similar fashion, these melodies become part of the composer’s own vocabulary, since he both respects them and knows how to construct his own vocabulary from them.

Though they are not quite as memorable as the famous Rachmaninov, the settings for the All-Night Vigil should be much better known: they include a ‘Blazhen muzh’ with a highly affecting bass solo, dramatic, freely composed settings of ‘Svete tihiy’ and ‘Nine otpushchayeshi’ and memorably sonorous settings of ‘Voskreseniye Hristovo videvshe’ and ‘Vzbrannoy voyevode’. Performances throughout are excellent, and the recorded sound (the recording was made at St John’s College Chapel, Cambridge) resonant but clear enough that every word may be understood.