Charlotte Master Chorale Sings Rachmaninoff’s Vespers (well, most of it)

February 9, 2026

Lawrence Toppman

By Lawrence Toppman

We so seldom get a chance to hear Sergei Rachmaninoff’s magnificent “Vespers” that no opportunity should be missed – even when, as in the case of Charlotte Master Chorale’s lustrous performance last weekend, we get about 80 percent of the whole thing.

First United Methodist Church in uptown Charlotte provided a setting Friday that was more or less spiritually apt and quite acoustically satisfying. If we missed censers, oil lamps, candles or dawn breaking through stained-glass windows, all of which might come with services in the Eastern Orthodox Church to which this music relates, we didn’t miss any vocal glory under the leadership of artistic director Kenney Potter.

Rachmaninoff wrote this piece in 1915, two years before the Russian Revolution eroded religious sentiment in the homeland he would shortly leave. (He emigrated to Scandinavia and ended up in the United States in 1919, spending the rest of his life here before dying in Beverly Hills, Cal., in 1943.)

He creates a sense of holy mystery and jubilation through tempos that vary only from andante to adagio, except for a final burst of energy in the last of the 15 movements. He achieves variety through dynamics, from loud passages that could move mountains to soft ones that move us to meditation. There’s lightness of spirit from time to time, just not fleetness of musical lines.

Rejoicing, expressions of glory, chants of “alleluia,” even the announcement of Christ bursting “the bonds of Hades” come out in measured, reverent tones. Except for a brief alto section and a single movement featuring a tenor, Rachmaninoff eschewed soloists. (Jordan Taylor sang his number with a firm tone and a hint of the edgy Slavonic sound I hear on the recordings I own.)

If you don’t know the piece, this may all sound monochromatic, even tedious. It isn’t. The composer varies the pace and mood just enough to keep us alert. And though he surely didn’t have a 110-voice choir in mind, the Master Chorale’s massed sound would make anybody sit up with interest and pleasure.

The common title of “Vespers” is a bit misleading. Rachmaninoff preferred “All-Night Vigil,” because fewer than half of the numbers relate to a Vespers service. The others come from Matins, the early morning service, with the final joyous (and slightly more eruptive) hymn of praise coming from the Prime service.

The Chorale sang in Russian, as you’d want it to do, and the printed program provided both English translations and enlightening commentary by Graham Abbott. I searched that program for any explanation for the abridgement – Potter didn’t mention it from the podium – but found none. I left wondering why he cut two movements lasting about 12 minutes total from a 70-minute work. Surely anyone who loves this music wouldn’t get bored hearing those parts, and I can’t imagine the Chorale being unable to sing them.