Pavel Chesnokov: Voices Without Words – Choral Works for Cello Ensemble

Description

With this recording I aspire to breathe new life into the extraordinary vocal scores of Pavel Chesnokov with unique and compelling sonorities, multi-tracked on my cello. Chesnokov, whose career spanned the late Imperial and early Soviet eras, was one of the most important composers of Russian Orthodox choral music.

What inspired me to take on this project is my love of Chesnokov’s music. What gives me the confidence to believe in its success is how well-suited the adaptations are from voice to cello. I revere Chesnokov’s writing for its romantic lyricism, dramatic dynamics, exquisite harmonies, and text settings praised for their beauty, clarity, accessibility and emotional depth. This music is deeply meditative, sumptuous, yet powerful.

Project Background and Context

The challenges I have faced in life bear little comparison to those of Chesnokov. However, I have had a taste of Soviet-Era oppression, which in part affords me insight into and an affinity with how Chesnokov’s music evolved. In the fall of 1989, I was invited by the Music Director of Leipzig’s St. Nicholas Church – one of Bach’s two resident churches – to perform the complete Bach Suites. While there, Leipzig’s famous “Monday Demonstrations” began—weekly protests that served as the catalyst for the “Peaceful Revolution,” leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Directly preceding the Monday Demonstrations, “Prayers for Peace” meetings held at the St. Nicholas Church grew, attracting international media. Though informed it would risk surveillance of me, I often performed a movement or two of Bach for news broadcasts as the cameras were rolling, no doubt giving the Stasi State Police reason to open a file in my name. On October 9, 100,000 protestors gathered in the square outside the St. Nicholas Church, defying a massive, heavily armed presence of police and Stasi security forces. They were authorized to use violence, but remarkably, did not. After that event, I returned to Cologne, Germany, where I was concertizing and recording with Musica Antique Köln.

Between tours, I visited Prague, the birthplace of my paternal grandparents. On the third day of my visit, my return plane ticket and passport were stolen from my hotel room. Panicked, I sought advice from the American Embassy. The Embassy, fearing for my life, helped smuggle me out of Prague in the middle of the night on a freight train. Little did I know that in just weeks, the student-led “Velvet Revolution” would commence, ending 41 years of one-party Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. And in 1994, upon arriving in St Petersburg, Russia, for a concert tour with the contemporary music ensemble, Alea III, I alone among my colleagues was detained at the airport and interrogated for hours by armed guards in a room with black-out window curtains. My cello was taken from me, which was alarming personally and for the company as I was the only cellist in our small ensemble. My instrument was returned to me the next day by a Russian female security agent who followed me everywhere for the duration of the tour.

I only mention these personal experiences in relation to Chesnokov’s journey. Experiencing first-hand this Soviet-era suppression has helped me appreciate just how poignant, tragic and timely his story is. The arts had flourished boldly in Russia at the turn of the 20th century. To have some insight into how this creativity was crushed, perverted and driven underground has been eye-opening, if heartbreaking. Across history, periods of constraint on artistic expression have never been absent; within this continuum, championing Chesnokov’s music and legacy acquires a renewed significance.

Project Realization

Chesnokov’s lyrics have been my ‘North Star’ in adapting these works. I have methodically applied the translations of his lyrics to inform my phrasing and interpretations. While one will not hear the singing of Chesnokov’s lyrics in this recording, behind each note is a vocal viewpoint. I have tried to adhere to his three basic elements of good choral sonority: ensemble, intonation, and nuance. Chesnokov described good ensemble as the balance and blending within each section and all the sections together, resulting in “unity.” Precision in intonation, and accuracy in the tuning of chords results in “beauty.” And nuance – the perception and fulfillment of an interpretive vision – will result in “expressivity.” He also cautioned to minimize vibrato, as a strong vibrato can destroy ensemble and intonation.

I carefully applied all of these elements to each piece initially in my home studio before the final taping in a recording studio. My adaptations certainly differ in color when comparing choral music in a religious context to the distinctive instrumental characteristics the cello brings to the repertoire. But hopefully, the utmost respect I have for Chesnokov’s intentions shines through.

The Music

I have chosen pieces, both sacred and secular, that offer a variety of textures – homophonic, polyphonic and mixed – from four to eight parts. Chesnokov’s sacred compositions use a variety of Christian texts such as psalms, hymns, liturgies and chants. His secular pieces are based on texts from Russian folk songs (notably, In the Field a Birch Tree was Standing), or poems by Russian authors who were his contemporaries. The uniqueness of each piece is cleverly constructed using devices such as recurring rhythmic motifs, refrains for emphasis, layered textures, melodic invention, and harmonic surprise.

The recording begins with a piece that straddles Chesnokov’s sacred and secular periods of creative work. In Days of Battle was most likely composed for a war benefit concert or a prayer service on the occasion of Russia’s catastrophic entry into WW I in the summer of 1914. While its opening lines do invoke God’s mercy, its themes of foreign invasion, disease, famine and other tribulations of war are more appropriate for a concert setting than a liturgical service. The recording ends with a late sacred work, The Great Doxology, Op 44, No 9, composed in 1913. It is an emotionally intense piece that shifts from brilliant celebratory passages to prayerful, reflective episodes, ending with a resounding crescendo. In between are thirteen (other) sacred pieces [tracks 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, and 11-18], and five secular ones [tracks 4, 5, 9, 10, and 19].

One of the sacred works in this recording, I Wail and Lament, is a world premiere. Two of the secular pieces are also world premiere recordings: Oh, If the Mother-Volga, and In the Field a Birch Tree Was Standing. And there is no commercially available recording of a third secular piece, In Winter.

Liner Notes by Karen Kaderavek ©2026