based on the texts of Ivan the Terrible

In 3 parts

For mixed choir, soloists (bass, tenor), 2 f.p., celesta, organ and percussion

The full title of the work is “Canon to the Terrible Angel, Commander and Guardian. The work of the Holy Fool Parthenius (John IV the Terrible, Despot of Russia).”

“The text of Ivan the Terrible, this “earthly angel of death” for his contemporaries, addressed to the heavenly angel of death, is filled with trepidation and fear, repentant thoughts: “Having defiled the soul with evil lusts and not washed with warm tears, and not cleansed with alms” (song 9, troparion 1)...

The composer attempted to create a synthetic genre that combines many styles that have existed in church and author's music over the past 300 years: recitative, folk lament, church polyphony and monophonic chant, psalmody, bell ringing, old cant, part concerto. Each of these styles is used at different moments of the composition.

An expressive recitative, reminiscent of the monologues of Mussorgsky's opera characters, is performed by the soloists: bass and tenor, performing the text of the canon.

The role of the choir in this work is multifaceted. It is a depiction of different types of bell ringing: the festive peal in the first section and the funeral ringing at the beginning of the second section. These are also the constantly sounding short glorifications and exclamations: "Alleluia", "Lord have mercy", "Glory to Thee, God". They are very important as a kind of commentary on the text of the Canon. The exclamations "Alleluia", "Glory to Thee, God", "Lord have mercy" are repeated many times by the entire choir, often in the rhythm of the bell ringing, festive and funeral... Such choral sound-pictorial episodes are a vivid contrast to the tense monophonic or two-voice responses of the soloists."

Nora Potemkina