Easter and tears

This time two years ago, I suggested listening to a song by Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Easter, a joyful celebration of Christ’s resurrection. Last year we listened to the moving The Crucifixion by Samuel Barber, and this year we go back to Easter with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s point of view, which is quite different from the one from Vaughan-Williams.

Between August and September 1906, Rachmaninov wrote 15 Romances, Op. 26; the no. 6 of this collection is our song this week, Христос воскрес (Khristos voskres, Christ is risen). As mentioned in a previous post dedicated to the Russian composer, his songs are often sad and melancholic; Khristos voskres is also heart-breaking. Worshipers are in churches celebrating Easter, they are praising the risen Christ, but the poet is sad and silent: if Christ was among us and saw how we hate and kill each other, he would shed bitter tears. This reflection is understandable in light of the Russia in 1906, shortly after the infamous Bloody Sunday, but also at present, when we know about so many disasters around the whole world.

The poem is by Dmitry Merezhkovsky, contemporaneous of Rakmàninov. Merezhkovsky was born into a family who was in good terms with the Tsar's entourage, and from his youth he devoted himself to intellectual and spiritual life. Nevertheless, his faith led him to reprobate the anti-Christianity of the Russian Monarchy and to approach socialism. He understood the revolution by means of religion, because Christ was a revolutionary. Things went as we already know, Merezhkovsky had to run away from Russia to Paris in 1921. Rachmaninov had fled from the revolution in 1917; besides sharing melancholy and pessimism, the sorrow of exile finally got them together.

We are listening to Khristos voskres performed by Russian baritone Sergei Leiferkus, accompanied by Howard Shelley. I've added the cyrilic poem for those readers who can read Russian.

Despite such a sad song, you have a happy Easter!