RIAS Kammerchor, Hans-Christoph Rademann - Alfred Schnittke: Penitential Psalms (2016)

The Penitential Psalms, a key work in the artistic itinerary of Alfred Schnittke, was premiered in Moscow in 1988. This masterpiece of exceptional density and rigour, at once contemporary and timeless, is performed here from the composer’s autograph manuscript, which includes significant divergences from the published edition.
The Penitential Psalms for mixed choir a cappella, which stylistically might be seen as a substrate of the Concerto for Choir he had composed three years previously on texts from the Book of Lamentations by the medieval Armenian mystic Gregory of Narek, were written in 1988 to commemorate the millennium of the Christianisation of Russia, which commenced with the baptism of Grand Prince Vladimir in what was then Kievan Rus’. On this occasion the literary source of the work was a selection of poems for Lent from the pen of one or more anonymous monks, which Schnittke had discovered in an anthology of Old Russian texts from the second half of the sixteenth century, published in Moscow in 1986.
The key to understanding the entire cycle is contained in the sixth verse of the work. This deals with the fundamental motif of original sin and refers to the story of the treacherous murder of Vladimir’s sons Boris and Gleb, later canonised and revered as martyrs, which their older half-brother Svyatopolk perpetrated in 1015 in the course of bloody conflicts over the succession. The remaining pieces are entwined around this central section, like a band of mourning crape, a wreath of prayer-like paraliturgical verses of the kind that had their heyday in the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Bitter lines concerning past wrongs and human sinfulness, which are marked by sorrow, lamentation, the willingness to repent and the hope of forgiveness.
The Three Sacred Hymns, which follow the Psalms, are rooted in a musical tradition closer to Russian Romanticism. The first is a bichoral Hail, Mary, which derives its concentrated inwardness from the strict antiphonal dialogue between the two choirs. The ensuing prayer to Jesus begins softly in unison, suddenly rising to an emphatic eight-part fortissimo, releasing energies that seem still to resonate in the concluding Our Father, in which Schnittke pushes the terrain of the tonal area of E flat to its limits in constantly varied vocal combinations. In comparsion with the Penitential Psalms, the Three Sacred Hymns are unquestionably more strongly rooted in the Romantic tradition of Russian sacred music, as it can be traced from the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff settings of the All-Night Vigil to Stravinsky’s Ave Maria and Pater Noster. But even these miniatures, in a way typical of this important ambassador of a non-dogmatic modernity who alas fell silent far too early, show the significance of the old in the new and the new in the old alike.

TRACKLIST

Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)

Zwölf Bußverse für gemischten Chor a capella
Twelve Penitential Psalms / Douze Psaumes de pénitence
01 Nr.1. Adam saß vor dem Paradies und weinte 3:05
02 Nr.2. Es nimmt mich die Wüste auf wie die Mutter ihr Kind 4:09
03 Nr.3. Weshalb lebe ich in Armut 3:21
04 Nr.4. Meine Seele, warum befindest du dich in Sünden 2:16
05 Nr.5. O Mensch - verdammt und armselig 3:02
06 Nr.6. Als sie sahen das Schiff 2:18
07 Nr.7. O meine Seele, warum hast du keine Angst 5:26
08 Nr.8. Wenn du die Zeitlosigkeit der Trauer überwinden willst 2:02
09 Nr.9. Über mein Leben als das eines Geistlichen habe ich nachgedacht 7:20
10 Nr.10. Sammelt euch, ihr christlichen Menschen! 3:27
11 Nr.11. Ich bin in dieses elende Leben gekommen 3:57
12 Nr.12. (mit geschlossenem Mund) 7:35

Drei geistliche Gesänge für achtstimmigen gemischten Chor
Three Sacred Hymns / Trois Hymnes sacrés
13 I. Gegrüßet seist du, Jungfrau, Mutter Gottes 1:35
14 II. Herr Jesus, Sohn Gottes 1:34
15 III. Vater unser 3:21