Priiditye Poklonimsya

This week, the Saint Nicholas Choir and Schola Cantorum are recording the first movement of Rachmaninov’s All Night Vigil — a work that is sometimes called Vespers.

This coming Sunday is the feast of Christ the King, and so I chose this motet to fit into the theme of kingship. The text is from the Orthodox daily prayer cycle, specifically from Vespers, and it contains a series of rhetorical repetitions:

 O come, let us worship God our King.

O come, let us worship and fall down before Christ, our King and our God.

O come, let us worship and fall down before the very Christ, our King and our God.

O come, let us worship and fall down before him.

Rachmaninov worked with text from the liturgies, so the settings are all in Old Church Slavonic. The kids have been working on their Slavonic pronunciation for a number of weeks and have noticed that some of the modern Cyrillic letters are Greek letters, such as the “X” in “Khristu” (Xpиcтy) or “Π” in “Priiditye” (Пpиидите). It’s a challenge, but also good fun to sing in a new language!

Listen to the Vasari Singers perform “Priiditye poklonimsya” at Lincoln Cathedral (the motet proper starts after the ‘Amen') and look forward to hearing our choristers this Sunday!

Justin Appel, Director of Music