Master Chorale’s reverent ‘Vigil’

Most concertgoers know the glories of Eastern Orthodox Church music only as filtered through the choruses in Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov.” A more direct -- though still mediated -- experience comes perhaps unexpectedly from Sergei Rachmaninoff, whose “All-Night Vigil” (also known as Vespers) must be the composer’s crowning achievement and the summit of sacred Russian choral music.

Certainly conductor Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale made the strongest case possible for that claim in a luminous performance Sunday at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The roughly hourlong a cappella work consists of 15 sections mostly based on authentic or counterfeit chants of the composer’s creation. Though derived from Orthodox evening services, the 1915 work was intended for concert performance.

For all kinds of technical reasons, the music sounds stylistically and idiomatically different from the masses, requiems or other ecclesiastical works familiar in the Western art music repertoire. Suffice it to say here that the key to this music is its attitude of humility and devotion.

Even when it rises in waves to fortissimo bursts of praise to God the creator, Christ or the Virgin Mary, in no way is it meant to exalt the singer or the composer, who in true medieval fashion remains virtually anonymous. The emotion is both objective and intense, a reflection of the text perceived and shared as present truth by the collective faithful.

Gershon and the chorale met the formidable challenges of this kaleidoscopically colored music with a stunning immediacy and a fluid response to the texts. Moving securely through the treacherous shifts in pitch (this feat alone would justify the huge applause at the end of the work), the chorale blended beautifully in layers of sound that sometimes moved at different speeds and always deepened or expanded the listener’s response.

Even when it was sometimes difficult to follow the Russian texts because of repetitions and overlays of words, it was impossible to miss the singers’ intentions, whether expressed in hushed, gentle meditations or huge outpourings of joy and affirmation.

Tenors Charles Lane, Sal Malaki and Daniel Chaney were fine in their brief solo duties.

But it was Gershon who ensured that the voices of the 110-plus singers flowed so expressively and lucidly throughout Rachmaninoff’s amazingly selfless work that seeks only to honor the composer’s faith.

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chris.pasles@latimes.com