Review of Capella Romana’s Concert of Rachmaninov’s All-Night-Vigil

Capella Romana sings Rachmaninov All-Night-Vigil

Concert on January 7 2012

On olde calendar Christmas (Jan 7) Capella Romana performed the All-Night-Vigil at St. James Cathedral in Seattle. Capella Romana is a Chamber choir that beefed up its bass section for this concert. According to Chesnokov’s book on choral directing they should have had an additional bass and octavist to balance the sound (page 13). The octavist they did have did a magnificent job. When the choir went flat in the Velichit Dush (Magnificat) #11 the octavist were still able to sing a clear Low Bb (which by that time had become a Low A) and tune it immaculately. The choir gave a spirited performance which was augmented by including some of the other parts of the All-Night-Vigil that Rakhmaninov did not set. They included pieces by other Russian Masters that gave a sense of the context of the Vigil as a worship service. For this effort I must applaud the Capella Romana.