Sviridov's "Sacred Love"

Here's a video of the Grinnell Singers performing Georgy Sviridov's "Sacred Love," with Graciela Guzman, soprano soloist. The text of this piece is so simple and at the same time so profound, wedding together in a few words the essential kernel of human love and an image of the sacred that goes beyond any creed.

O Love, you,

you, O Love
are sacred.
From the beginning you are persecuted
Your blood is poured out.
O Love, you,

you, O Love
are sacred.

This song has particular meaning for me because it evokes memories of singing it under the direction of Vladimir Minin in 1988 in New York, at the festival celebrating the millennium of Christianity in Russia, organized by Vladimir Morosan and Peter Jermihov. The choir included American choral musicians as well as Russians, and the festival was charged with great intensity as we came together for the first time to rehearse and perform under the direction of one of Soviet Russia's most revered conductors. Coming at the heels of decades of repression of sacred music in the Soviet Union, that concert in 1988 was something extraordinary -- a powerful, cathartic moment when people who had been divided were brought together by music that was charged with great spiritual intensity.

After the soloist finished her opening passage, at the spot in the middle of "Sacred Love" where the choir takes over, when we prepared this piece in 1988, Minin asked us to open up our sound from a hum to "ah," moving carefully through all the intervening vowels (mm -- oo - oh - uh - ah), ending up with the brightest sound at the climax. We tried to recreate that effect in this 2010 performance.