A GOOD YEAR FOR
CHORAL PREMIERES
(If You Were Born in 1978)
By Paul Hertelendy
artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
and dance
Week of March 18-25, 2009
Vol. 11, No. 81
BERKELEY---Three
emerging composers have created world-premiere opuses for male
chorus, unveiled here on St. Patrick’s Day without fanfares, as it was
all a cappella.
These are
works with a flavor tied much more to the
classical or Renaissance era of music than to the romantic. The
preponderance
of high voices particularly recalls the renaissance, where baritones
and basses
were often omitted altogether. And all three works tended toward the
ascetic as
well as the aesthetic.
Chanticleer,
that elite professional group of 12 singing
with neither accompaniment nor conductor, is dominated by (male)
sopranos,
altos and tenors. Its singers can thread the needle on very difficult
vocal
lines, often with all 12 having distinct assignments. There is no room
for weak
links.
Mysticism and textual juxtapositions dominated the
new works;
both Berkeley’s
Mason Bates and East Coast composer Shawn Crouch zigzagged through
contrasting
texts, while British composer Tarik O’Regan hewed to a nihilistic
poetic text
by Samuel Beckett. Chanticleer came up with a clever
unifying force in its commissions: All three
composers were born the same year as the founding of the chorus, 1978.
O’Regan’s 14-minute “No Matter” was a particular challenge,
a solemn, subtle piece featuring sustained consonances without start or
end,
tricky enough to sing that the ensemble veered a bit off-pitch (while
bouncing
up and down to try to maintain the elusive
beat). Much of this divided the chorus into two groups, one high and
one low,
with an untouched octave or so between---an unusual, ear-catching approach.
Shawn Crouch’s
“The
Garden of Paradise” interspersed texts of a returning Iraq
soldier,
via Brian Turner, with translated love poetry by the 13th-century
Persian known simply as Rumi. The former is reactive---“It should break
your
heart to kill”---while the latter is reflective, ending in the
exuberance of
love, of release, of celestial visions. The Crouch-Turner part recalled
the evocative voices of the pacifistic Britten-Owen “War Requiem.”
Mason Bates’
“Sirens”---at 30 minutes, the night’s
longest---offered the added challenge of foreign languages in its world
literary tour: ancient Greek, German, Quechua, and Italian, reflecting
an exercise where
Chanticleer had clearly labored to improve its diction (The German was
especially
well enunciated, much more so than the Italian). The work is nobly
framed by
Homer’s “Odyssey” excerpt. There were beautiful halos of high sound in
the
Quechua “siren” portion, along with soft percussive rattles. Including
the
German “Die Lorelei,” where both poem and timeless song are learned by
every
German youngster, seemed pointless. Far more effective was the St.
Matthew
gospel on Jesus’ “fishers of men” quote, reminding me of some the distant serenity heard in Arvo Pärt’s
vocal music. This one could effectively be excerpted for a sacred
program.
All in all,
the three premieres added up to a mammoth
achievement by emerging talents covering new ground in esoteric
fashion. Too bad that other
performing groups don’t have the same relish for adventure and renewal
as
our fearless Bay Area choruses.
As is
customary, Chanticleer repeatedly altered its
formations standing in the sanctuary for optimum vocal cohesion. Music
Director
Matthew Oltman annotated the event, which is a (belated) highlight of
Chanticleer's 30th season.
The concert
was given in the First Congregational Church,
where the resonances greatly enriched the choral output.
Chanticleer, the all-male
professional a cappella chorus in
three world premieres. Repeating at Mission Santa Clara
March 18, then March 20-22 at the Conservatory of Music, San
Francisco.
For info: (800) 407-1800, or
go online.
©Paul Hertelendy 2009
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Paul Hertelendy has been
covering
the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with
relish
-- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never
weakly)
will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with
forays
into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local
artists as well.
#
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