I was less interested in God and religious ceremonies than in singing of unrivalled beauty. What Sergei Rachmaninoff later said about his early childhood contact with the Orthodox liturgy and it's rituals also applied to his later life as a composer. Singing plays a central role in the Russian Orthodox rite: almost the entire service is sung, instruments are not permitted and only the word should take centre stage. This mystical a cappella singing is characterised by it's Byzantine tonal system based on eight notes and it's strong bass foundation. In combination with the peculiar language of the special Church Slavonic, the result is an archaic, exotic and fascinating world of sound, which Rachmaninoff masterfully combines with his modern tonal language in his Ganznachtliche Vigil, written two years before his emigration to the USA.
