Monastic Choir of the Valaam Monastery

This beautiful, ancient-inspired a cappella music reflects the beauty of the Christian faith. Released in 2020, this 72-minute album features awe-inspiring Christian chants with some traditional styles such as byzantine, as well as some more innovative and somewhat controversial styles such as the Valaam style, unique to the monastery. Sung completely in Church Slavonic, an ancient language resembling modern-day Russian, the music appears at first to be unfamiliar. However, the beauty of the chants shines through to all who listen. Here are a few of my favorites:

Song 6: Stanza of the Ninth Hour for the Eve of the Nativity of Christ

This song is a Znamenny chant, traditionally sung at the Ninth Hour (~3:00PM) on the Eve of the Nativity of Christ (Christmas Eve).

A translation for this song is difficult to find, as the 9th hour is something only traditionally sung at monasteries. Parishes generally only sing the 3rd and 6th hour. Initially, it appeared that I would have to physically go to a monastery to acquire the official text. While many of the songs on this album are easily discoverable online in multiple languages, I was not able to easily find the text for this particular song online – it required a much deeper investigation first.

I was able to copy down a somewhat sloppy transliteration by ear of the hymn. With the help of ChatGPT, I got the transliteration cleaned up, which I fed back into ChatGPT to translate to English. This is what it produced:

The Uncontainable One is born, O Virgin!

The one who holds all creation is held in Your arms.

His birth, He did not leave His divine nature.

He has come to dwell in the world,

Yet He remains beyond the world.

Neither place nor time can confine Him,

Yet now He appears as a little child.

By His word, He established all things,

Yet now He is wrapped in swaddling clothes.

The heart sings with joy,

And offers a sacrifice—

For the heavenly rain has come down,

Bringing life to the earth.

The Church now rejoices,

For she receives the Heavenly Bridegroom.

We bow down before Your Nativity, O Christ!

We bow down before Your Nativity, O Christ!

We bow down before

Your Nativity— O Christ!

For You have been revealed to us,

Your divine manifestation, O God!

Once I got this rough translation, I simply pasted it in its entirety into Google search and found this hymn in English:

Today He Who holds the whole creation in His hand is born of a Virgin.

He Whose essence none can touch is bound in swaddling-clothes as a mortal Man.

God, Who in the beginning fashioned the heavens, lies in a manger.

He who rained manna on His people in the wilderness is fed on milk from His mother’s breast.

The Bridegroom of the Church summons the wise men;

the Son of the Virgin accepts their gifts.

We worship Thy birth, O Christ.

We worship Thy birth, O Christ.

We worship Thy birth, O Christ.

Show us also Thy Holy Theophany!

The cleaned-up transliteration from ChatGPT seemed quite accurate when compared to the audio of the song, and the English translation from ChatGPT is also quite similar to this. The website (https://catalog.obitel-minsk.com), says that “This Sticheron is sung on the eve of the Nativity after the Royal Hours, when, in the reading of the Ninth Hour, we recall His suffering and death on the Cross.” Stanza can be considered a rough translation of Sticheron, and it clearly denotes the eve of the nativity and the 9th hour. With all that said, I think this is likely the hymn I was searching for, translated into English.

This song shows the story of the birth of Christ. Mystically, the incomprehensible God accepts to be comprehended as a little child. The uncontainable one accepts to be contained within his Mother’s womb. A truly divine mystery!

Song 9: “A mercy of peace…”

This song can be more easily translated, as it is taken directly from a section of the Divine Liturgy (For those unaware, the Divine Liturgy is a Christian service sung on Sunday mornings as well as other days).

This is the direct translation:

“A mercy of peace, a sacrifice of praise

…

And with your spirit

…

It is meet and right to worship the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in essence and undivided.

…

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of Your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Amen, Amen.

…

We praise thee, we bless thee, we give thanks to thee, O Lord, and we pray unto thee, we pray unto thee, O our God. O our God.”

Traditionally, the priest would be proclaiming various things in between the verses sung in this song, some a single line and some a lengthy prayer. These moments are marked in the translation as ellipses.

This song is my favorite of the album. The song is difficult for a male to sing, spanning all the way from D3 to F5. That’s a quite big range and the effortlessness of the choir members as they sing this difficult piece is impressive. It’s full of emotion and, as the description on the YouTube video states, exudes a “joy … hidden under an outer austerity and asceticism.” The song gives the listener an impression of the sincerity of the hearts of the singers, while at the same time imparting a deep, majestic, and awe-inspiring impression onto the listener. It’s a deeply serious song, even sorrowful – while at the same time, containing indescribable joy. It’s the kind of song I’d want to (and do) listen to when everything is going wrong, and when everything is going right. I may not be Russian or understand the language, but I’ve listened to and sung along with this song so much I know every word by heart.

Song 18: Let all mortal flesh keep silence

“Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and in fear and trembling stand, pondering nothing earthly-minded;  for the King of kings and Lord of lords cometh forth to be sacrificed, and given as food to the believers; and there go before Him the choirs of Angels, with every Dominion and Power, the many-eyed Cherubim and the six-winged Seraphim, covering their faces, and crying out the hymn: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.”

This beautiful and sober chant immediately sets the tone of awe and reverence, standing in “fear and trembling” before God. It calls to mind the divine beings in the presence of God, and instructs the faithful to “ponder nothing earthly-minded” as they participate in the Divine Liturgy of Holy Saturday. This particular hymn is sung in a Znamenny-chant style using an ison part (drone note) and a melody part. The ison, a stable and grounding presence in the chant, is often understood as God, ever-present and unchanging, and the melody, constantly changing pitch, is often seen as a symbol of humanity in our journey towards God. In this chant we hear the Ison and melody parts meet on the same note at the end of phrases, symbolizing the meeting of God and Man.

Honorable mention: Cherubic Hymn (Kastorsky) sung by Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church Choir (in Salem, MA). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uLWhx1mA40&list=PLYIrCDhNbD3y_5b8It3K-qXZ5VavpJZwI&index=47

With all of the Valaam Monastery Choir music being sung by an all-male choir in Church Slavonic, I thought it would be appropriate to include this hymn as something I also am listening to. This hymn is sung by three ladies and it is in English. Their voices form a beautiful sound, and the English lyrics make it easily understandable for Americans.

This hymn was composed by Alexander Kastorsky, likely over 100 years ago around the turn of the 20th century. However, the Cherubic hymn in various compositions has been sung by Christians for around the last 1,400 years. This hymn, and variations of it continue to be sung by Christians worldwide to this very day. In the process of researching this particular hymn, I came to the realization that this hymn, along with most others I reference in this blog is considered to be western-style chants. I am not very well-researched in this area. Western-style chants follow western musical tuning and scales. However, byzantine chant uses completely different intervals in the scales. In other words, you cannot play byzantine-style music on a western-tuned instrument like a piano, because byzantine chant notes do not exist on western instruments. This is because some byzantine notes are in-between standard western intervals. I find it interesting that most of the Russian chants along with this one are sung western-style (equal temperament), despite the fact that for the vast majority of church history, hymns were sung in byzantine-style. While western music uses a staff-based notation, byzantine music uses a symbol-based notation with relative note frequencies (as compared to western music, where for example C3 is always ~131hz – an absolute frequency). There are more differences still, but I don’t want to dive too deep into the Byzantine compared to Western music rabbit hole! It was interesting learning a little bit about it.

These songs give a glimpse into the beauty of the true Christian faith. For me, this music is a truly refreshing taste of heaven. While it is no substitute for attending the divine services at the local church nor for home prayers, this is a wonderful thing to listen to while driving, doing chores, or while needing an audial pick-me-up. However, words cannot do it justice. If you want a real taste of the music, it must be listened to. Even better – find an Orthodox Church near you and hear divine chants live. Thanks for reading my blog! – Chandler Hocking