Bard Music Festival
Program Ten • Rachmaninoff’s Vespers
August 14, 2022
The choral traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church remained a profound musical influence on Rachmaninoff throughout his life and he wrote two major sacred works for unaccompanied choir. Program Ten showcases the Bard Festival Chorale’s interpretation of the second: the Vespers (All-Night Vigil).
A spiritual work whose resonant a capella sonorities use the full range of the human voice, this comprises 15 movements, nine based on traditional Eastern Orthodox chants from Greece, Kyiv, and Russia, and six on chant-like motifs of Rachmaninoff’s own invention.
Considering the Vespers one of his two finest achievements, the composer requested that its fifth movement, the “Nunc dimittis,” be sung at his funeral.
10 am performance: Bard Festival Chorale / James Bagwell, choral director
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943)
Vespers (All-Night Vigil), Op. 37 (1915)
Support
The 2022 SummerScape season is made possible in part by the generous support of Jeanne Donovan Fisher, the Martin and Toni Sosnoff Foundation, the Advisory Boards of the Fisher Center at Bard and Bard Music Festival, and Fisher Center and Bard Music Festival members. The 2022 Bard Music Festival has received funding from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
Plan Your Visit
Eat & Stay
Grab a bite and a drink while you’re at the Fisher Center! We offer theater concessions at Sosnoff theater, LUMA theater, and Olin Hall. Across the way, is the al fresco Spiegeltent Garden—or grab a nosh while seeing a Spiegeltent Performance. There is ample space for outdoor picnics across Bard’s campus. Nearby villages and towns in the Hudson Valley boast a large selection of restaurants, as well as a variety of hotels, motels, inns, and bed & breakfasts
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