The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Russian: Литургия святого Иоанна Златоуста, Liturgiya svyatogo Ioanna Zlatousta) is an a cappella choral composition by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his Op.
[1] It consists of settings of texts taken from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the most celebrated of the eucharistic services of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
If we follow the service very carefully, and enter into the meaning of every ceremony, it is impossible not to be profoundly moved by the liturgy of our own Orthodox Church... to be startled from one's trance by a burst from the choir; to be carried away by the poetry of this music; to be thrilled when... the words ring out, 'Praise the name of the Lord!'
[6] The manuscript was sent to his publisher Pyotr Jurgenson in July;[6] this is confirmed by a letter to von Meck in the same month, where Tchaikovsky wrote that he was "happy in the consciousness of having finished a work... Now I can indulge in full my secret delight in doing nothing.
[5] Jurgenson's publication of Tchaikovsky's setting was promptly banned by the director of the chapel, Nikolai Bakhmetiev, on the grounds that it had been published without his approval.
The confiscated plates were released in November and December 1880 by the Synod, which ruled that the church censor could approve the publication of sacred music without the chapel's involvement.
[6] This decision had ground-breaking implications, since for the first time in many years it became possible for Russian composers to create sacred music, without being subjected to bureaucratic review.
[17]Ambrose, the vicar of Moscow, was particularly opposed to the work; he published a letter in the Rouss,[18] in which he asserted that the public performance of the liturgy was a profanation.
[15] Tchaikovsky's setting of the Divine Liturgy, along with his All-Night Vigil and his nine sacred songs, were of seminal importance in the later interest in Orthodox music.