Pavel Chesnokov

[steve]

A great and prolific composer of Russian choral music. He wrote hundreds of sacred and secular pieces for a cappella choir and also a book on directing a choir. His music is particularly interesting to me for his regular use of the full vocal range i.e. he included parts for the lowest register (the basso profundo or octavist) voices which give the choir a very full, rich sound.

His music is very well represented on youtube. Here is an example:

[steve]

And a more polished recording of the same piece:



And of course there are many more of his compositions to be heard on youtube.

[Kevin]

This kind of music is so intense, don't you thnk?

[steve]

Intensely intense!;-) There are even more intense pieces on YouTube but I didn't want to clutter up the place with a million videos - anyone interested can easily find more.

[steve]

Some of my favorites are Do Not Reject Me in My Old Age, We Bow Down Before Thy Cross (one version of which I believe is by Chesnokov, but I'm not even 100% sure), and Verily He Is Worthy (again I think Chesnokov wrote the version I'm referring to, but my Russian is so bad I'm not even sure, but the style is the same anyway!).