2015 GRAMMY Award winner for “Best Choral Performance”
2015 GRAMMY Award nomination for “Best Engineered Album, Classical”
5 Stars I “The US conductor Charles Bruffy and the Phoenix and Kansas City Chorales have long been outstanding interpreters of this repertory and their performance has a devotional intensity that is often overwhelming.”
— The Guardian
“This is easily the best-sounding of all Rachmaninoff Vigils that I have heard, and there are a number of them out there now that are well worth consideration by all who love this music.”
— Audiophile Audition
“This is an impressive account of a very great masterpiece… This combined choir is of truly exceptional quality, the occasional solos are excellently taken and the recording, in a most suitable venue, sets this great work as it should be experienced aurally.”
— International Record Review
“beautifully balanced… Intonation is spot-on throughout… ultra-smooth blend.”
— Gramophone
“Rachmaninov’s All-night Vigil, sometimes referred to as Vespers, is the “crowning achievement of the ‘Golden Age’ of Russian Orthodox choral music”. However strict the composition, in this performance, the 75 minutes that it takes present rapturous music from the soul, divine in its import and casting a liturgical spell but also something beyond that: in purely musical terms there is something for believers and non-believers alike. I have now become smitten with these fifteen settings (after a few misses over the years). The combined Chorales and Charles Bruffy present the sacred nature of this music while giving it an expressive and rapt glow that really takes it to the listener’s senses. Chandos’s recording – made in Kansas City, in the Cathedral of St Peter the Apostle – is ideally spacious yet focussed, superbly capturing the dedicated and deeply responsive performance. The booklet includes an excellent note as well as Cyrillic and English texts. A revelation!”
