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Alexander Gretchaninoff / Maximilian Steinberg Passion Week - more

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on April 14, 2015 at 13:51:21

A new review out today (by John Quinn at Music Web International) of the Steinberg "Passion Week" recording (just released a few weeks ago) references Gretchaninoff's settngs of the same texts. As I tried to convey in the thread further down, Steinberg's work is one of the most amazing and moving musical discoveries I've encountered in the last decade or so. Here are some excerpts from the review (plus a link to the full review further below):

. . . [i]t's worth mentioning at this point, I think, the Passion Week by Alexander Grechaninov which was written in 1912 and to which Alexander Lingas says Steinberg's work is 'indebted for its form'. The two composers set several of the same texts but the musical response is rather different. I know the Grechaninov work through the magnificent recording conducted by Charles Bruffy. . . and the impression I have is that Grechaninov's music, though deeply expressive and very beautiful, is more conservative harmonically than Steinberg's and that Steinberg's writing is also more polyphonically complex. I'm not for one moment suggesting that one work is "better" than the other - that would be as crass a statement as it would be unfair - but it's interesting to compare two differing responses within the Orthodox tradition. Most of Steinberg's settings are based on traditional Znamenny chants but there is also one piece based on a Kievan chant while another is founded on a Bulgarian chant. The eighth piece, 'The Wise Thief', is an original composition.

Often when a review disc arrives. . . I'm unable to resist playing just a few minutes of it to get an initial impression, especially if the music is new to me. I did this with this disc but found that I was hooked and I listened straight through the Steinberg work. I was struck forcefully by the sheer beauty of the music - and by the excellence of the performance. . .

Passion Week is a remarkable work that contains intensely beautiful music and I was gripped and moved by it. . .

It's Steinberg's Passion Week, though, that has the greatest claim on the attention of collectors. I'd go so far as to say that it's a major discovery. Anyone who responds to a work such as Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil will find this a very rewarding piece. I don't think that Steinberg's piece is as memorable in its melodic material as Rachmaninov's masterpiece but that may well be because I'm much more familiar with the Rachmaninov. I have no hesitation in saying, however, that Passion Week is one of the finest and most moving Orthodox settings that I've encountered and I've been excited by getting to know it. . .

Every aspect of the presentation of this release is first rate.

• Full Review   (Open in New Window)

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