an Absence of Competition

The Prague Philharmonic choir join over a dozen others who have recorded Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil, a work once thought the special property of the Russian choirs who are, of course, prominent in the lists. The Czechs sing it without a cantor, and more as a concert work than some of the others do. Though they take the famous scale in the Nunc dimittis, descending to a profound B flat, in their stride, they are not as sonorous as some others, and their particular contribution is to sing the music lightly and flexibly, with a lively response to the words. They have excellent sopranos, safe in intonation when attacking the exposed high entries in thirds which are a feature of the music, and a good tenor for the three numbers that involve him as a soloist. The Magnificat, with all its tempo changes and shifts of register, is expressively done, as are the light rhythms of ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord’.

Mischa Maisky started studying the cello at the age of eight. An immensely talented student, he entered the Riga Conservatory. Discouraged by the rigid curriculum, however, he moved to Leningrad in 1965. He not only won the Soviet Union's national cello competition, but also had an acclaimed debut with the Leningrad Philharmonic. In 1966, Maisky won a prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.