Alexander Kastalsky Christmas Carol

Last evening at rehearsal we reviewed for the first time "Shepherds of Bethlehem," a composition by Alexander Kastalsky. The piece is not only quite beautiful (it is somewhat reminiscent of the Ukrainian Carol "Good Evening to You (Dobri Vechir Tobi)" - which goes to show how connected Eastern European/Slavic carols are) but has an interesting history and is worth mentioning below.

The text is attributed to St. Dimitry, Metropolitan of Rostov (1651-1709), who was an outstanding scholar, poet and musician of his time. It was a surprise to me to learn about the saint's contribution to the arts. This text is found in one of his so-called "mystery plays" - a genre of plays that was popular in medieval Europe - called Christmas Drama. Nikolai Findeizen, a contemporary scholar of medieval Russian music, has the following to say about secular music in 17th century Russia and St. Dimitry's contribution to it:

The management of the [Russian] public theater was entrusted to foreigners and "principals" imported to Moscow for this purpose, and theatrical performances were also staged at the Moscow Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy and later at the Surgical School under the direction of Dr. Bidloo. Plays were produced for the courts in the village of Preobrazhenskoe, where the theater was renovated by Tsarevna Natalia Alekseevna; later, plays were produced at Tsaritsa Praskov'ia Fyodorovna's residence in the village of Izmailovo. Copies of plays performed at the Kiev Academy, in the metropolitan of Rostov's palace, and even in Novgorod have been preserved. The repertory of all these theatrical enterprises can be divided into three basic categories: mystery plays and school plays of similar character; regular theatrical plays (comedies); and theatrical plays with political subtexts.

Mystery and school plays were performed at Kiev Academy, and from there they passed to Moscow and Rostov. It is known that at the founding of the Kiev Academy, Metropolitan Peter Mohila required the poetry teachers to prepare a play for the annual summer festivities. The subject matter was taken from the Bible, but over time as Russian actors were brought in, topics from Russian history were selected. These theatrical productions were slavish imitations of Western models, although the same might be said of the Russian theatrical repertory of this period as a whole. The extent of this borrowing may be seen in the text of Dimitry Rostov's Deistvie na Strasti Khristovy (Passion Play), a mystery play in which one of the two musical numbers were sung in Polish. St. Dimitry was one of the most popular authors of mystery plays performed in schools; during his residence in Rostov, the plays were staged in the Metropolitan’s Krestovaia Palace.

About 200 years after St. Dimitry wrote this text for one of his "mystery plays," Alexander Kastalsky composed the current music for it (albeit a poetic English translation of it). Kastalsky's original composition was actually never published. Vladimir Morosan based it on a mimeograph copy found in the composer's archive in the Glinka Museum of Musical Culture in Moscow.

Here is a nice recording of the original Russian composition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB2w_q_216w
I hope you enjoy it! (Please note that the audio and video do not line up properly; the audio is delayed a second or two delay in the video)

This Week's Rehearsal and Schedule through Decemeber

At tomorrow evening's rehearsal we'll continue to rehearse for the Byzantine Festival, as well as other things for the Divine Liturgy (and even the Advent Concert in December). Last week we rehearsed Nazo Zakkak's Annunciation troparion, "Today is the beginning of our salvation" and you all did an outstanding job with the dynamics and diction. I encourage you to continue to concentrate (while having fun!) at rehearsals as you did last week. Tomorrow we'll rehearse the troparion for Orthodox Sunday, "We venerate Thy most-pure image, O Christ God" by M. Petrovich (by the way, if anyone knows who this composer is and what his or her first name is, I'd be very grateful to know), as well as one or two pieces for our December Advent concert.

There are still surveys in the loft on the bulletin board. If you haven't filled out a survey about the repertoire for the upcoming recording please do so. Your input is important!

Important. Please take note of dates in St. Mary's Choir's schedule through the end of the year:

October 6. Byzantine Festival Workshop. 9 AM (St. Constantine's Ukrainian Catholic)
October 7. Byzantine Festival Concert. 3:30 PM (St. Constantine's Ukrainian Catholic)
October 10. Annual Meeting
October 20. Wedding. 3 PM
November 3. Choir Banquet 6 PM
December 8. Advent Concert. 6 PM
December 9. Hierarchical Liturgy 9AM(?)
December 14. Russian Museum Concert 6 PM

Last but not least James Pavlik feel asleep in the Lord. Memory Eternal. His parastas will be tomorrow evening at 7 pm at Kozlak-Radulovich in NE. Funeral on Thursday morning at 10:30 at St. Mary's Cathedral.

Concert, Concert, and Recording

This past weekend I created a small survey for you to fill out about the upcoming recording in 2019. I placed them in an envelope attached to the bulletin board in the loft. Please take one, fill it out, fold it in half, and return to the same envelope on the bulletin board. Please have all the surveys returned to me by Sunday, September 30. It's important that all of you participate in this survey. We want to make a recording everyone will enjoy.

Also, please sign up for the Byzantine Festival concert on Sunday, October 7 if you haven't already done so. The concert starts at 5 pm at St. Constantine's Greek Catholic Church on University Ave., but we should arrive at 3:30 for warmup, etc. What will we sing? As of now this is the selected repertoire: Annunciation Troparion, Nazo Zakkak; Orthodoxy Sunday Troparion, M. Petrovich; Psalm 103, S. Glagolev. The festival is always a fun event, so please consider participating this year if you've never done so.

At last Wednesday's meeting I mentioned that we've been invited to sing a Christmas concert at The Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis. Today I got confirmation from the museum that the concert is scheduled for Friday, December 14 at 7 pm. Please stay tuned for more details.

Tomorrow's rehearsal we will start rehearsing for the Byzantine festival concert, one piece for the Christmas concert, and Bortniansky's Cherubikon No. 6.

Recording project repertoire proposals

Dear Choir -

One of the things we discussed at last evening's meeting was the recording project scheduled for sometime next year. The big question that I'd like your feedback on is repertoire. I really want to hear your suggestions and ideas about this. Three recording ideas were suggested for your consideration:

1. Parastas Service; maybe combined with selections from the wedding service and other services too to fill an entire CD.
2. Vigil and liturgy selections from our feast on October 1. There's potentially quite a bit of material we can choose from; a few different special melodies for stichera at "Lord, I Call"; many, many different possibilities for the non-movable texts/hymns in vespers, matins, and liturgy. 
3. An English recording (the first ever as far as I know) of Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev's Divine Liturgy. We already sing a few different selections of his at liturgy, so we already have a start on this.

Starting this weekend I'll have surveys in the loft to hear your feedback on this recording project.  Please take the time to answer the questions and to give me your ideas about repertoire.

Last evening someone asked whether we have a goal for this recording. Why are we doing it? What will be do with any money we make? These were good questions and I don't remember giving an answer.

I think for any choir - whether it's an Orthodox church choir or a community choir, or even a professional choir like Cantus - it's important from time to time that it is challenged in a way that forces the singers to step up to the plate so-to-speak. Concerts do this and so do recordings. Our task as St. Mary's choir is multifaceted. On the one hand the choir initiates a connection between the earthly and heavenly; our voices give life to the church's sacred texts - texts which then become the prayer of the faithful, leading them to the kingdom of God. This is a theological aspect of our singing, but there's also a practical one too. If what we're doing at liturgy is actually important, then we should not just be concerned with the theological aspect(s) of liturgical singing, but we should be interested and eager to become better litugical singers in a technical way. Rehearsals are obviously the most important part of this technical training, but concerts and recordings force us pay closer attention, listen, watch, learn, and think more closely and critically about ourselves. When a choir has a goal such as a recording, it is forced to grow and self-reflect in ways that normal rehearsals and liturgical services don't force it to. I mean, there are many different analogies you could make about a recording for a choir. In a way it's like continuing education for a professional. It's part of the job and it keeps your skills sharp; it gives you new ideas, new purpose and reinvigorates you.

And, of course, there are many other reasons to record as well. It's fun. As for the proceeds, we'll can decide what to do with it (if anything at all) at a later date.

Deacon Gregory

Week of the Elevation of the Cross

Dear Choir,

It's been quite a while since anything has been posted here, but I think it's good for many different reasons to start blogging again.

As in the past, I hope that what's blogged here can not only provide information to choir members about upcoming events, but also serve as a platform for distributing music and important details about Sunday liturgies and other important services at St. Mary's.

This coming week's schedule.

1. Wednesday, September 12. Choir rehearsal at 7 pm.
2. Wednesday, September 12. Choir meeting at 8 pm. This meeting will be important for many reasons: it's our first meeting of the new ecclesiastical new year; we'll discuss important dates in the fall schedule such as 1) Byzantine Festival concert 2) TMORA concert 3) Advent concert; upcoming recording project and repertoire. Concerning the last point, I'm very interested to know what each of you think concerning repertoire. 
3. Thursday, September 13. Vigil for the Elevation of the Cross at 6:15 pm.
4. Friday, September 14. Divine Liturgy for the Elevation of the Cross at 9 am.
5. Saturday, September 15. Wedding for Joni Venusek and Andrew Hinton. Meet at 2:45 pm the in loft.

If you weren't at rehearsal last Wednesday, I'm sure you noticed that we sang one new piece (Beatitudes) at liturgy this past Sunday. We also pulled out an oldie but goodie - Blessed be the Name of the Lord composed by Dmitri Bortniansky. At upcoming rehearsals we are going to continue to introduce new pieces as well as reintroduce pieces already in our binders. One of these pieces I'd like to reintroduce is Bortniansky's Cherubikon No. 6. It's a lovely composition that is inspiring and fits the liturgical moment in a way that resonates with St. Mary's Cathedral. Here's a link (of course we will sing it in English, though; the score is copy righted, so it won't be posted).

Since we will be within the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross this Sunday, we will most likely sing the feastal antiphons. Here is music for these.

See you on Wednesday evening.

Deacon Gregory