The Tallis Scholars: Rachmaninov Vespers + Arvo Pärt

One of the great works for a cappella choir, Rachmaninov’s Vespers grips hold of you from the start and never lets go.

The richly burnished, resonant sound and the combination of ancient Slavonic chant and echoes of Russia’s indigenous choral traditions create an exotic yet persuasive musical language – from the other end of our own continent, but somehow a world away. Interspersing it with shorter works by Arvo Pärt is a beautifully constructed counterweight.

Pärt’s gently mesmeric, unique music unfolds in its own terms at its own pace. Two of the works are prayers for peace commemorating the victims of terrorist attacks – those on Madrid trains and at the World Trade Centre, where, according to the composer, “the relics of the saints have become intermingled in the dust with the remains of the attack victims”. The unhurried purity of Pärt’s vocal writing lends the Christian liturgy a pan-denominational spirituality.