“All of Creation Rejoices” is a setting of the special Hymn to the Theotokos (the Mother of God) that is sung at the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, served ten times during the year. Chesnokov’s setting may be described as a “paraphrase” of Pyotr Turchaninov’s setting of the same text, which was the one most widely used in Russia during the nineteenth century. (Turchaninov’s chant arrangement is No. 66 in the anthology One Thousand Years of Russian Church Music, V. Morosan., ed., Musica Russica, 1991.) The connection is clearly established in the first two measures through the use of the same “Greek” chant melody used by Turchaninov. Chesnokov then departs from the cantus firmus substantially, reintroducing it briefly in mm. 15-16, 27, and 41-42, just enough to maintain the connection with the prototype. The most signiflcant departure from the homophonic “chant harmonization” style occurs in mm. 31-40, where imitative writing and text repetition paint the text “more spacious than the heavens”. Chesnokov included this work as a supplement to Opus 15, his first setting of the complete Divine Liturgy, which he compiled by taking individual hymn settings from earlier opuses and adding all the essential liturgical responses. Though clearly intended for use during the liturgy, it compares favorably with his compositions of a concert-like nature.
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