For those who didn't hear the concert aired on EWTN Monday night from Washington, here's a link to other music by the same composer, the Russian Orthodox bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev).
I only heard about half of his Christmas Oratorio, but so far I like his liturgical music better. The latter is really quite beautiful, but the oratorio's long recitatives of Scripture texts, delivered ascetically stentorian and recto tono, didn't seem fitting in the work of a non-liturgical nature, intended for concert performance.
The premiere of a lengthy new work necessarily carries with it a certain amount of tension: when the composer is a bishop and the concert is hosted by another Church, add some more; this time, in a foreign capital, at a time of heightened international stress, this performance by the Orchestra and Chorus of the Russian Defense Ministry, of all things, came off as a joyless reminder of the Cold War. It's too bad: Bp. Hilarion deserves better.
