Shchetynsky, Alexander: Choral Works (Naxos Audio CD)

Sacred Music from Ukraine

Know Yourself*
Symphony for mixed choir a cappella
Light to Lighten (Svit vo Otkroveniye)*
Sacred cantata for mixed choir a cappella and two bells
Requiem for mixed choir and string orchestra**

*Cantus Chamber Choir, Emil Sokach
**Gloria Chamber Choir
Leopolis Chamber Orchestra, Roman Rewakowicz

The Ukrainian composer Alexander Shchetynsky writes music of haunting luminosity and sublime spirituality. Within a framework of rhythmic and structural flexibility, each of the three works heard on this recording is a synthesis of a multitude of musical styles. These include old and new Orthodox Church chant, Ukrainian song melodies, Gregorian Chant, early polyphony, Baroque, 19th-century operatic melodies and innovative 20th-century compositional techniques.

The composer writes: “I aim at overcoming eclecticism and finding a new unity in the combination of those musical elements that historically never existed next to each other.”