Rachmaninoff’s “All-night Vigil” May 3

At Blessed Sacrament parish at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 3. Choral music written in three- to eight-part harmony, one of the master works of Russian Orthodox liturgical music. Notice excerpted from State Journal-Register arts calendar for April 3:

SPRINGFIELD CHORAL SOCIETY

“Russian Summers” – Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “All-night Vigil”

Where: Blessed Sacrament Church, 1725 S. Walnut St.

When: May 3, 7 p.m.

Tickets: $10

Where: St. Joseph’s Church, 700 E. Spruce St., Chatham

When: May 4, 7 p.m.

Tickets: $10

And this from this month's bulletin of Holy Family Catholic Parish in Lincoln:

Springfield Choral Society, under the direction of
Maion van der Loo, will present “Russian Summers”,
Sergei Rachmaninoff's “All Night Vigil” on Saturday,
May 3, at 7 pm at Blessed Sacrament Catholic
Church in Springfield and Sunday, May 4 at St.
Joseph’s Catholic Church in Chatham. Tickets are
$10 (valid for either venue). Tickets can be
purchased from choral members Greg Coughlin or
Ruth Freesmeier.
This concert gives our parishioners the opportunity to
attend a quality performance of religious music at a
low cost. Springfield Choral Society is a group of 60
members dedicated to providing only the finest music.

The All-Night Vigil, also (incorrectly) known as Rachmaninov's Vespers, is the composer's setting of a Russian Orthodox liturgy sung on the eve of Pascha (Easter) and other festival days. The all-night vigil service combines Vespers with two other monastic services and normally lasts two or three hours, but not all night! Wikipedia, which is this case is reliable, says:

The vigil has been set to music most famously by Sergei Rachmaninoff, whose setting of selections from the service is one of his most admired works. Other musical settings include those by Chesnokov, Grechaninov, Ippolitov-Ivanov and Alexander Kastalsky. It is most often celebrated using a variety of traditional or simplified chant melodies based on the Octoechos [a traditional system of Eastern Orthodox chant] or other sources.

Also this:

It is written for a four-part choir, complete with basso profondo. However, in many parts there is three, five, six, or eight-part harmony; at one point in the seventh movement, the choir is divided into eleven parts. Movements 4 and 9 each contain a brief tenor solo, while movements 2 and 5 feature lengthy solos for alto and tenor, respectively. The fifth movement Nunc dimittis (Nyne otpushchayeshi) has gained notoriety for its ending, in which the low basses must negotiate a descending scale that ends with a low B flat (the third B flat below middle C). When Rachmaninoff initially played this passage through to Kastalsky and Danilin in preparation for the first performance, Rachmaninoff recalled that:
'Danilin shook his head, saying, "Now where on earth are we to find such basses? They are as rare as asparagus at Christmas!" Nevertheless, he did find them. I knew the voices of my countrymen..."'