Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Vsenoshchnoye bdeniye (All-Night Vigil, often known as Vespers) stands as one of the pinnacles of twentieth-century choral music. Written in 1915 during World War I, the work consists of fifteen movements based on centuries-old Russian church chants. Unlike his piano concertos and symphonies, Rachmaninoff’s Vespers demand not orchestral virtuosity but choral purity, vocal depth, and an exceptionally broad dynamic range. For lovers of choral and spiritual music, it is a work that touches both the soul and the ear.
Historical background
Rachmaninoff composed his Vespers during a period when the Russian art world was shaped by nationalist and religious reorientation. Although not overtly devout himself, he felt deeply connected to the roots of the Russian Orthodox musical tradition. The premiere took place in Moscow in March 1915, performed by the Moscow Synodal Choir under Nikolai Danilin. The success was immediate, but the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 led to a ban on sacred music in public life, and the work disappeared from performance in Russia for many years.
Church Slavonic as a musical vessel
The sung texts of the Vespers are in Church Slavonic, the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church. For Russian worshippers, it resonated as sacred and elevated, much like Latin in the Catholic Church. Its cadence, with long vowels and soft consonants, shaped the musical phrasing and inspired the flowing, breath-like lines of movements such as “Bogoroditse Devo” (no. 6), Rachmaninoff’s radiant setting of the Ave Maria.
Russian roots
The work’s foundation lies in Russian chant traditions. Rachmaninoff drew on znamenny chant (a medieval form of unison liturgical singing) as well as local devotional melodies. The vast geography of Russia is reflected in the variety of modes and melodic turns. Where Western Europe relied on major-minor harmony, Rachmaninoff rooted his sound in ancient Russian scales, which created a very different color and tension.
The All-Night Vigil
The title All-Night Vigil refers to the traditional Orthodox night service preceding Sunday liturgy, combining vespers, matins, and lauds. Rachmaninoff selected fifteen key moments from this service, each movement a meditative reflection on texts ranging from psalms to hymns to Christ and Mary. The result is not a concert piece in the Western sense, but a liturgical meditation that later found a permanent home in the concert hall.
Sound and technique
Rachmaninoff intertwines old monodic chants with a modern, often romantically inspired harmonic idiom. His writing is striking for its use of exceptionally deep bass lines, reaching to low B♭—a note sung only by rare Russian oktavists. This foundation gives movements like the “Nunc dimittis” (no. 5) an almost otherworldly weight, while the high sopranos add a shining clarity. The interplay of earthly darkness and heavenly light is one of the most defining features of the work.
Fun fact: in the final movement, the basses descend to a seismic low B♭1. At the premiere, conductor Nikolai Danilin worried about finding singers who could manage it. At Cappella Amsterdam, we’re fortunate never to have had that problem, hear why below:
The 20th century: ban, rediscovery, canonization
After the Russian Revolution, public performance of sacred music was forbidden. As a result, the work all but vanished from the repertoire in its homeland. Outside Russia, however, it continued to be sung, particularly in émigré circles and later in Western concert halls. From the mid-20th century onward, interest grew rapidly thanks to landmark recordings by Russian and international choirs. Today, Vespers is regarded as a cornerstone of the choral repertoire, at once faithful to its Orthodox roots and enriched by its life on the concert stage.
More than a century after its premiere, Rachmaninoff’s Vespers retains its magnetic power. It feels like a refuge in a restless world, offering listeners contemplation and solace. For connoisseurs it is a summit of choral music; for new listeners, an accessible entry point into the beauty of the choral tradition.
Listen to Cappella Amsterdam’s performance of Bogoroditse Devo from The Grand Inquisitor on YouTube.
Conclusion
The Vespers are at once a prayer infused with religious spirit and a cultural statement. They reveal how a composer, in the midst of war, turned to centuries-old roots to create a sense of continuity and identity. For listeners today, the work remains an intense experience: the depth of the basses, the expansive choral sonorities, and the silence between phrases evoke a spirituality that transcends any single church or tradition.
