About Christ Is Born 11

About the Music:
"God is with us" is the great prophetic proclamation from the Prophecy of Isaiah sung at Orthodox Great Compline. In the scheme of Orthodox services, this service is intended to be served prior to festal matins on the great feasts of the Nativity of Christ, the Theophany (Epiphany), and Annunciation; it is also prescribed to be served on certain days of Great Lent. In American Orthodox parish practice, however, Great Compline is suppressed in some traditions, making this hymn seldom heard.
The Russian Orthodox practice, which maintains at least portions of Great Compline on the parish level, knows several popular musical settings of "God is with us"--a Kievan Chant and a Znamenny Chant setting (the latter magnificently harmonized by Alexander Kastalsky), as well as compositions by Priest Vasily Zinoviev and Pavel Chesnokov.
The Valaam Chant setting recorded by Archangel Voices is less common. I first heard it on a CD entitled "Hymns of the Russian Orthodox Church" by the Odessa Cathedral Choir, under the direction of Vladimir Koshkin (Sonora Label SO22580CD). On that CD, the melody is identified as only a Valaam Chant, with no arranger listed. I found the original chant in a collection of Valaam Chant, freely reworked the melody in English and then arranged it for four-part chorus. Later I discovered that the unidentified arrangement I had heard is by Bishop Jonathan (Yeletskikh), a prolific composer of Orthodox liturgical music in Ukraine. His original arrangement (which he identifies as "Solovetsk Monastery Chant") can be found on his website for large choir and small choir.
In my personal experience, this arrangement has proven to be practical for use with a small parish choir (8-12 singers) because of its simplicity and extensive use of unison writing.