Kyiv Chamber Choir. Kyrylo Stetsenko. Vol.2. Vespers.

"Stetsenko's large cyclical works, written for church services, are performed today in concerts both as cycles and in excerpts. Concert performances and recordings readily offer the opportunity to appreciate the organic wholeness of the composer's artistic conception, the individuality of its author's interpretation, and his achievement of a unique genetic code of genuine national prayer, not only in melodic-intonation styles, but also in the manner of textual exposition and setting. On this disc, special consideration was given to the expression of choral proclamations and to the observance of traditional cantoral and psalmodic chants that interpolate and unify the music.

"Vespers" belongs to the services introduced into the church ritual around the 15^th century. Stetsenko worked on the Ukrainian musical version of this service during the confessional conflicts between the Ukrainian and Russian churches that preceded the Pan-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Conference in 1921. The extensive material of traditional liturgical chants that he collected was of large import for the Autocephalic Ukrainian church, which was in need of research into national rituals. Working on the old chants, Stetsenko underlined their salient elements, introduced variety into their characteristic melodic-harmonic expressions, both phrases and sentences, and emphasized them in repetitions and antiphonal expositions..." L. Parkhomenko, Doctor of Arts, professor

(information from the polygraph of the disc. You will find the full text in the booklet, the text is published in Ukrainian and English)