Dostoino yest'

Sergei Rachmaninoff's Dostoino yest' is a powerful setting of a traditional Orthodox text praising the Mother of God. The words, "It is meet and right to bless thee, the Mother of God, ever-blessed and all-immaculate and Mother of our God," lead into a profound adoration of Mary, "more honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim," who gave birth to the Word of God. Rachmaninoff responds to this profound liturgy with a lush, eight-part SSAATTBB choral texture, written in the original Church Slavonic. The music swells with the devotional fervor of the text, creating an overwhelming sense of awe and spiritual transcendence. This is a substantial and deeply spiritual work for a large choir.