Reviews For Review of Vespers

Review of Vespers

Like its predecessor, Liturgy No. 2, this CD contains newly composed liturgical music of extraordinary beauty, skillfully and sensitively performed by a fine professional choir from Ukraine. This CD is a must for all who are interested in following new developments in Orthodox liturgical music worldwide, as well as for anyone who simply loves beautiful choral music. An especially interesting feature is a Hymn to the Mother of God for the Exaltation of the Cross, in which the composer demonstrates his newly developed interest in chant: taking the original melody from the L'viv Irmologion, translating it into English and arranging it for 4-part choir.

Canadian Composer's Vespers Premiered in Kyiv

A new sacred-music choral work by Canadian composer Roman Hurko received its world premiere on September 24 in Ukraine. The Vydubychi Church Chorus sang Hurko's Vechirnia (Vespers), under the direction of conductor Volodymyr Viniar, at the Sviato-Uspensky Sobor as part of the International Kyiv Music Fest.

The concert was supported by the Canadian Embassy in Ukraine.

The Kyiv Music Fest is an annual festival, now in its 16th year. It took place from September 24 to October 1. The festival is conducted under the aegis of Ukraine's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Association of Composers of Ukraine, and the Centre of Musical Information. Other important sponsors are the General Directorate of Culture and the Arts, City of Kyiv Administration; The National Philharmonia; and The Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine. It is organised by a committee of well-known Ukrainian composers, this year headed by Yevhen Stankovych, Myroslav Skoryk, Lesia Dychko and others.

The Fest features choral, orchestral, instrumental and vocal chamber-music performances by a range of groups and artists from Ukraine. The music ranges from sacred choral works and established and contemporary classical music to jazz and experimental compositions, performed by Ukrainian and international artists.

This year, two programs, "Musical Dialogues of Ukraine-Estonia and Ukraine-USA", explored contemporary offerings from these countries.

A chamber group from Seattle comprising a string trio augmented by flute, clarinet and percussion, presented contemporary sounds. Master classes and scholarly music conferences brought composers, academics, performers and audiences together at the event notable for the degree of participation by youth.

The performance of the Vydubychi Church Chorus opened the 2005 Fest. Founded in 1990, the choir consists of professional singers and graduates of music conservatories and institutes.

Under the artistic direction of Volodymyr Viniar, who obtained his degree in musical education at the M. Drahomanov Pedagogical University of Kyiv, the choir has gained international recognition and has performed on stages and in churches in Belgium, Holland, Germany and Australia.

The choir's performance of Vechirnia was magical because Hurko's work is infused with spirituality. Melodious, yet with a hint of modernism, it has the ability to lift the listener to worship.

The 24 voices of the choir deeply touched the audience who came to hear them in the majestic, yet small, Sviato-Uspensky Sobor of the Kyiv Pecherska Lavra. The 80-plus audience, consisting of professional musicians, music scholars and members of the public, continued their applause long after it might have been expected to stop.

Lesia Dychko, the well-known Ukrainian composer and energetic motor behind the Kyiv Music Fest, offered moving, sincere words of praise to the composer and the choir after the completion of the one-hour performance. When the choir sang "Bozhe Velykiy Yedyniy" as an encore, the air was electric.

Vechirnia was recorded last May and is being currently mastered for production. The CD is scheduled to be released in early 2006. A DVD of the Kyiv performance is also in production.

Hurko's Vespers Reflects Our Times - interview

On Saturday evenings, a few years back, composer Roman Hurko could usually be found at the Vechirnia (Vespers) at St. Elias Ukrainian Catholic Church just outside of Brampton, Ontario. There, Hurko was soaking in the atmosphere and the glorious harmonies of the service officiated by Father Roman Galadzaa and sung by the parishioners.

At the time, Hurko was composing his own Vespers, and much of the inspiration for his new liturgical work, which was recorded on a recently released CD, came from those evening services.

"It is so beautiful at St. Elias in the evening," says Hurko describing the mood in the wooden church designed in the traditional Boyko style found in western Ukraine. "If you go at the right time of year, you go into the church, and it's light outside and during the service the sun is going down and the light comes through the windows. Then, [the service] finishes in darknessﾅand the beautiful candles light up the iconostas and the various icons."

Unlike the bilingual Vespers services at St. Elias, which are sung in English and Ukrainian, Hurko's Vespers is written in Old Church Slavonic. It's a departure for the composer, who has written three other liturgical compositionsﾖtwo Divine Liturgies and a Requiemﾖset to Ukrainian texts. Hurko says he decided to set Vespers to Old Church Slavonic "so that it is open to the whole church of the Eastern rite." Also, Church Slavonic liturgies have "hundreds of years of tradition," says Hurko.

Though Vespers is sung in an ancient language, it has elements that reflect our times. "There are certain modern harmonies [in it]," he says.

Music, like all art forms, says Hurko, draws on dominant elements from the period in which it was created. "There's a relationship between music and architecture and even furniture and clothes," he says. "You listen to baroque music and you can, by the music, see that the people were wearing powdered wigs, and lace and their furniture was very ornate...
We live in a very undecorated age," he says. And so, "there's a certain spareness and cleanness to [my] music," says Hurko.

Ours is also an age in which few composers write new music for liturgical use in church. Historically this was not the case. Liturgical music has a 1,000-year history and, in the classical, romantic and even in the early 20th century, many composers wrote sacred music.

Hurko is drawn to sacred music because he feels it is a tradition that should be continued. "Liturgical music is a very important part of our rite, and it's important that there not be a break in the chain. Then the next generation can say, ﾑthis was happening in this period,' and then take it from there," he says.

"I find it interesting to listen to the various composers through the last few hundred years. I can tell how they felt about these texts, and even about the time they were living in by the music, and this is something necessary, for future generations to look back on."

How does one get into the right frame of mind to compose music that is meant to glorify God, that will hopefully find its place in a canon of a 1000-year tradition and is meant to be sung for generations to come? "It is definitely a process of quieting the mind and filling the soul and being in a place of contemplation and mediation," says Hurko.

Just as Hurko found inspiration at St. Elias, he found the right conditions for such meditation in his downtown Toronto apartment, which has a majestic view of Lake Ontario. "The sense of spaciousness has an influence; the slow-moving harmonies [of Vespers] are probably influenced by the view," he says.

Location also played an important role in creating the right mood and sound for the recording of Hurko's Vespers. Recording sessions took place last May at the historic Vydubychi Monastery, which was founded in 1070 by Grand Prince Vsevolod Yaroslavych on the southern edge of Kyiv by the Dnipro River.

For the recording, Hurko worked with the Kyiv-based Vydubychi Chorus under artistic director and conductor Volodymyr Viniar. Founded in 1990, its members are professional singers and graduates of music conservatories and institutes in Ukraine. The chorus also recorded one of Hurko's earlier works, Liturgy No. 2.

The composer says he commissioned the chorus to record Vespers because being a church choir "they not only sing it, they pray it. They know these texts. They sing them all the time."

The chorus sang the world premiere performance of Vespers in September 2005 at the opening concert of the 16th International Kyiv Music Fest.

A Canadian premiere of Vespers is still in the works. However, Hurko says he is working on getting the Vydubichi Chorus to come to Canada for a tour. "I'd love it for them to sing Vespers at St. Elias in Brampton with Father Galadza where I went to so many services. It has such an inspiration on the piece, and I'm sure it would be quite interesting to see how it fits into that space."