Choral Arts Philadelphia sings Rachmaninoff's 'All Night Vigil'

Choral Arts presented Rachmaninoff’s All Night Vigil as the grand finale for Mt. Gretna’s summer festival focusing on the Russian musical tradition. The members arranged for the bus that took them to the festival and paid for their seats on the bus. They offered me, as a music writer, a seat on the bus, and I thought it sounded like a good chance to travel with a volunteer chorus and see how their avocation looks from the inside.

It was a smart decision. I had a good time, and the experience reinforced one of my deepest convictions: The pursuit of a serious, demanding art bestows blessings that are worth all the effort and sacrifice it requires. The general atmosphere on the bus seemed relaxed and companionable — people who had known one another for a long time enjoying a chance to chat. Singers, it seems, are a lot like the writers I know: They started talking the moment they settled into their seats and kept it up all the way to Mt. Gretna.

Choral Arts normally sticks to Center City Philadelphia and Chestnut Hill. A communal trip like this is a rare event, even though their history includes a trip to Italy in 2000, to provide the finale for the world famous Spoleto Festival. Some of the older members still have T-shirts from that expedition.

The view from the stage

Alto Inna Lobanova-Heasley passed around a telephone with photos of a Russian monastery she had visited on a recent trip to her birth country. She grew up “in Soviet times,” as they say in contemporary Russia, and she’s the chorus’s resident expert on Russian pronunciation. When she told me the All Night Vigil is a difficult piece, I asked her why it’s difficult, and she singled out the last two sections. They both require a lot of energy, she said, and the singers have to supply that energy at the very end, when they’re getting tired.

In all the years I’ve been listening to music, I had never thought about that aspect of the demands it makes on performers. Most symphonies and choral works end with big finales. How many listeners realize the musicians are dipping into their energy reserves, like marathon runners burning their last calories in a final sprint?

Standing is another issue most of us don’t think about. Alto Victoria McManus noted that the All Night Vigil lasts over an hour, without intermission, and the chorus stands the whole time. Other choral works may be longer, but the chorus usually sits when a soloist grabs the spotlight.

Mt. Gretna is a survivor from the 19th-century Chautauqua movement. Like the original resort in Chautauqua, New York, it’s a summer getaway for people who like to include serious cultural and intellectual fare in their vacations. The theater is open on three sides, but it’s a solid structure with a roof and good backstage facilities. The choristers disappeared backstage when we arrived around 5pm and filed onto the stage at 5:30 for a final hour-long rehearsal.

Checking, and correcting, the sound

The rehearsal was primarily a sound check, with Choral Arts’s conductor, Matthew Glandorf, adjusting the chorus’s sound to the theater’s acoustics. Choral Arts performed the All Night Vigil for the first time two years ago at the Catholic cathedral in Philadelphia — a setting that resembles the Orthodox churches in which Russians engage in the dusk-to-dawn vigils commemorated in Rachmaninoff’s a cappella masterpiece. Glandorf asked the sopranos to sing one section a little sharp — to “make it ring” — and made other adjustments that would recreate some of the resonance of a big church. The rehearsal was a master class in the way a good conductor shapes a piece and turns individual performances into a satisfying collective work.

The members of a volunteer chorus may not be full-time professionals, but most of them have been singing in choirs and choruses since they were children. They responded to Glandorf’s instructions with the professional’s ability to give the conductor the adjustment he wants, on demand.

Glandorf left the stage three times and listened to the chorus from the middle of the theater — a practice that’s probably less common than it should be. Each time he did it, the chorus continued on the course he had set — another example of their basic professionalism.

Discovering home far from home

Inna Lobanova-Heasley produced one of the most moving moments of the outing during the talk that preceded the performance. When she first came to the United States, she visited the largest record store in Philadelphia and discovered Russian works she had never heard of — religious works, like the All Night Vigil, that had been banned in the Soviet Union. It had been an emotional moment for her, and you could see her struggling with the emotion as she told how she had encountered, for the first time, an important segment of the music of her people.

The All Night Vigil is a rather quiet piece for a season finale, but the applause that followed the performance sounded warm and appreciative. Rachmaninoff didn’t awe his audience with big walls of sound. He made the music dance instead. He embellished texts like “Glory to God in the highest” with a Slavic pulse and swirl.

The biggest event during the return ride was a vote on showing a movie, initiated by our trip leader, tenor Bryan Park. The ayes carried by a slim margin, and The Princess Bride won the selection vote. A technical glitch canceled the show, but nobody seemed to mind. The atmosphere seemed more subdued homebound, but I felt I was surrounded by happy people. How many times in your life have you created a great work of art in front of a responsive audience?