Rare Rachmaninoff by Master Chorale

In some ways, works such as Rachmaninoff’s “All-Night Vigil” are the surest reason for being that a chorus such as the Los Angeles Master Chorale has. After all, who else is going to sing a solid hour of mostly slow, unaccompanied, devotional Russian with the expressive strength and finesse that the Master Chorale under Music Director Paul Salamunovich brought to this challenge Saturday evening at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion?

And make no mistake, this is austere yet rapturous work that deserves to be heard. Also known simply as Rachmaninoff’s Vespers--although the bulk of its chants come from Matins, at the other end of the vigil--the “All-Night Vigil” is one of those pieces much honored in reference works, occasionally in recording and rarely in live performance.

That situation is slowly changing, and the new critical edition by Vladimir Morosan and Alexander Ruggieri, which Salamunovich used Saturday, may help. The popularity of recent contemplative works such as the Third Symphony of Henryk Gorecki may be the best omen yet for a broader appreciation of Rachmaninoff’s modal epic.

Salamunovich is a master of the elastic phrase, stretched taut but never broken, and he had plenty of opportunity to work carefully sculpted wonders here. He emphasized sonority and dynamics, while remaining alert to the composer’s flashes of narrative urgency.

The 120 voices of the chorale gave Salamunovich everything he asked for, in a hall notoriously unsupportive of sounds soft and low, where Rachmaninoff ended almost all of the 15 sections of his work. Sat down for short breathers three times, they sang this marathon with consistent warmth and flexibility.

The new edition dispenses with the contralto solo of previous versions, calling the full section to glory instead. It keeps the three incidental but long-lined tenor solos, however, sung capably though a bit overwide in vibrato by George Sterne.

The program began with Salamunovich receiving a medal and Rachmaninoff memorabilia for his efforts on behalf of Russian repertory, and it ended--after all that intense devotional energy--with the forgivable but nonetheless distinctly anticlimactic indulgence of “Happy Birthday,” sung to Salamunovich’s wife, Dottie.