Eddie Cantor Carnegie Hall Concert CD

But this album is also intended to be more than just a collection of Russian songs. It is intended as a kind of journey down through Russian history, a pilgrimage, if you like, to visit some of those places where Russian spirit and Russian soul have taken form in music. And before setting out on such a journey, it might perhaps be useful to keep in mind some of the major elements that of shaped Russian musical life. It will help us first of all to remember how basically different and separate Russian cultural history has been from that of the West. Alone of the major European powers, Russia developed from Eastern and Orthodox roots in Greece and Byzantium, rather than from Western and Catholic roots in Rome and Western Europe. Russia never shared in the profound cultural upheavals of Europe as the West moved from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, the Age of Discovery, and the Reformation. On the contrary, the great Christian schism between the East and the West in 1054, the position of Russia on the far edge of Europe, and above all the invasion and domination of Russia for the better part of three centuries by the Mongols - all conspired to reinforce the separation and isolation of Russian culture from that of the West, a separation with the most profound consequences for Russian cultural life.

Although the choral music of Russia now draws on many sources, two traditions are at its center. The first of theses traditions is the music of the Russian Orthodox Church. Early church music, derived directly from ancient Byzantine chant, is the musical expression of a faith that is austere, timeless, otherworldly, deeply transcendent in spirit - an while later church music incorporates many elements from other sources, this mystical, unearthly, haunting character of the ancient church is never far below the surface.

The second of these traditions is Russian folk music - unabashedly pagan in spirit, rooted in the land and the earthy vitality of peasant life. The Church did much to suppress any development of a secular music tradition until the 17th century. But this music not only survived - carried by itinerant troubadours and oral tradition, it flourished, a living embodiment of Russian spirit. Nothing could be further from the austere purity of Byzantine chant - yet it is with the broad spectrum formed by these two poles that much of Russian musical history has developed.