There’s a lot of strong competition for Rachmaninov’s justly popular Vespers (more correctly referred to as All-Night Vigil), with Robert Shaw’s vocally resplendent, acoustically spacious version with his Festival Singers (Telarc) and the MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig’s vibrant, powerfully expressive reading (Berlin Classics) among the best. This one from the very fine Prague Philharmonic Choir, in addition to being one of the fastest on disc, presents a solid, textually and musically faithful reading, but ultimately lacks the emotional impact and sonic integrity of the reference versions. While conductor Jaroslav Brych’s vision of this deeply spiritual music gives a nod to its devotional character, it remains decidedly earthbound–a very competent, even admirable technical exercise in choral singing. The notes are all there, the ensemble precision is commendable, but there’s an absence of the profoundly religious feeling that you immediately experience from Shaw and Arman (MDR Leipzig). Brych’s interpretations don’t convey the sense of the texts–Praise the Lord, O my soul is indistinguishable from Let thy servant depart–as clearly as the reference versions, and the famous Bogoroditsye Devo, Raduisya (Ave Maria) is amazingly sterile. Where’s the low-C at the penultimate chord? Sonically, the balances are weird, with sections of the chorus seeming to shift from background to prominence and even to move from side to side. It’s hard to gain a consistent perspective–could the fact that this is a multi-channel SACD recording have anything to do with this? Anyway, as much as I really wanted to like this–I’m a fan of the Prague Philharmonic Choir–I just can’t get excited about matter-of-fact singing and disorienting sonics.
