The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #26656   Message #322238
Posted By: GUEST,mousethief (at the library)
18-Oct-00 - 07:17 PM
Thread Name: Songbooks: YOUR Favorite Hymn Books
Subject: RE: Hymn Books
Our style is primarily Russian SATB, with Carpatho-Rusyn (primarily 3-part (SAB)), and a little Greek/Byzantine (mostly 2-part (SB)) thrown in for good measure. It's an Eastern Orthodox church of Russian descent, although everything is done in English these days, and most of us are converts rather than lifelong (or "cradle") members.

We do some Rachmaninov, and one piece by Tchaikovsky; otherwise it's by composers I've never heard of.

Very lovely stuff, though. A delight to sing.

The choir leads the congregation, who mostly sing the Soprano part (people able to pick out the parts are generally recruited quickly into the choir!). The regular Sunday Liturgy service is about 2 hours long and well over 2/3 of it is sung. Then there's Vespers (Sat. nite, about 45 min., and well over 3/4 sung) and Matins (Sun. morning, during church school, about 1 hour, 100% sung).

By the end of the weekend, my vocal chords have gotten a pretty good workout!

Alex
O..O
=o=