Rachmaninoff - All-Night Vigil (Vespers) Vocal Score

The Rachmaninoff - All-Night Vigil (Vespers) Vocal Score is a music book product that showcases Rachmaninoff's composition for the All-Night Vigil service. Despite being commonly referred to as 'Vespers', this piece is a masterpiece on its own. It incorporates elements from centuries-old Orthodox chant and the performance traditions of Russian folk music. It embodies the ideal of Russian church music as promoted by a group of Moscow musicians of that era. The composer's own imagination, skill, and experience are combined with the expertise developed at the Synodal School of Church Music, including its choir, which premiered the piece at various Moscow concerts.

This edition of the All-Night Vigil has been meticulously prepared to present Rachmaninoff's music in a clear and easily readable format. It also provides a new transliteration of the Church Slavonic text. Additionally, for the first time, an online audio pronunciation guide is included, which will be invaluable for choirs looking to perform this beautiful masterpiece.

Jeremy Summerly, in his review for the November/December issue of Choir & Organ, describes this edition as a "timely publication" and praises its presentation, stating it is difficult to imagine it being presented better. He commends the "immaculate" introductory material that places this culturally complex work in its colorful historical context. Summerly views this edition as a "legible, user-friendly, and authoritative" publication, highlighting its model-like quality.

Stuart Campbell, the editor of this edition, is an esteemed contributor to Russian music scholarship. He has written articles on Russian music for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (second edition) and Die neue MGG. Campbell has also published two volumes of his anthology of criticism entitled Russians on Russian Music. He serves as a tutor for the adult-education units of the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow and is the joint musical director, alongside Svetlana Zvereva, of the chamber choir Russkaya Cappella.