A CHORUS TO SHOUT ABOUT (DISCREETLY)
By D. Rane Danubian
artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
Week of Dec. 11-18, 2006
Vol. 9, No. 42
You want to beat the drums, but gently, to
celebrate the San Francisco
Choral
Artists singers.
This 23-member
mixed chorus remains among the foremost unaccompanied
singing groups of professional quality on this or any other coast. They
let up
slightly in the holiday program. I mean, this one featured only three
world
premieres, 20 selections spanning nearly 500 years, some six
nationalities and
4.5 languages (since the oohs and aahs constituting a Hungarian song
may or may not
count).
It’s the sort
of versatile elite group that, if you were a choral composer,
you’d want to write for; and many have. The singers bring out the
subtlest effects and the softest
pillow sounds along with robust outpourings in the finest intonation I
have
heard in ages. The 10-year director Megan Solomon has shaped a mature
ensemble leaving
a critic to grope to unearth even one flaw---perhaps a flickering
candle, a
sore throat, or a tuxedo bow-tie listing slightly to
starboard.
I guess I
could have used a few more clearly pronounced consonants in
the Dec. 10 concert at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, as more
and more Bay
Area choruses seem to follow the lead of the Grammy-winning S.F.
Symphony Chorus,
which hasn’t chewed on a good consonant since the Big Quake. But, to compensate, the SFCA has a very strong
section where most ensembles are weakest: tenors. The tenor-rich side
was
emphasized in the Englishman Benjamin Britten’s flamboyant Prayer I
from “Ad
majorem gloriam,” an opus that American customs held inexplicably in
bondage for
more than 25 years (prsumably because it smacked of left-leaning
Christian messages).
Among the new
works came one worthy of becoming an annual: Maia
Aprahamian’s “Zechariah’s Prophecy,” alluding to a figure of note in
liturgy of
both Islam and Christendom. Conceived in an alternating format
of cantor then choral refrain, it vaults
from
the line in Luke, “Given light to those who walk in darkness” to
place the choir
in a procession, at first pitch-black, then with candles lit and
carried, one by
one, This is a work of haunting beauty, unfolding with spatial
ramifications
to embrace and anoint the edifice.
Another new
work, Jerry Mueller’s “Io, Saturnalia!” was a novelty song apparently
by some jocular grouch, not quite Scrooge, satiated with holiday
bustle/hustle, ready to return to ancient Roman Saturnalia feasts of,
well,
everything we’re NOT supposed to do in public today.
The rep was
astutely chosen. Francis Poulenc, best known for
boulevardier pieces, lighter classics, and fashionable digestibles, has
a serene
Mass, from which the lustrous “Videntes stellam” in Latin was drawn. On
the
same linguistic wavelength was Orlando
di Lasso’s difficult polyphony of “Ave maris stella.” Lest Stella get
too
proud, these titles refer to a star, a symbol of the season, and not
Stella.
The polyphony
from the Renaissance is becoming to this vocal group, though it
makes no attempt to emulate the sound textures of choirs of men and
boys for
whom the music like di Lasso's was written 400+ years ago. Women now
sing all the boys’ parts,
with a warm vibrato that, back then, would have been absent.
The selections
included one favorite Indian carol, written in 1643 in Canada
by Jean
de Brebeuf. “In the Moon of Wintertime” tells the Christmas story,
transposed
and translated: Gitchi Manitou (God) brought us the Babe (Jesus) in a
lodge of
broken bark, in a ragged robe of rabbit skin, adored by chiefs (Magi)
bringing
gifts of fox and beaver pelt. Written in Huron, it was translated to
French,
and eventually English. Whatever the language, it touches and caresses
the
heart.
In a marked
departure from other choral offerings, the Choral Artists
provide a narrator and historian (Stephen Wilson) to comment sagely on
each set
and its significance while the singers regroup---a welcome, engaging
touch.
The
50-ft.-high ceilings of spacious St. Paul
and its brick walls allowed handsome resonances for the chorus, but no
resonance in attendance, which was in the 50-75 range, despite the
prime
Sunday-afternoon timing and cooperative weather in this highly
accessible downtown
Oakland
location.
Fortunately,
two opportunities remain to catch the SFCA's holiday cornucopia
Dec. 16-17. The program also includes the new "King
Herod Came to Bethlehem" by San Jose's Brian Holmes.
San Francisco
Choral Artists, opening its 23rd season, continuing
Dec. 16, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Palo Alto;,
and Dec. 17, St. Gregory of Nyassa Church, San Francisco. For info: (415)
979-5779, or go online.
©D. Rane Danubian 2006
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D. Rane Danubian 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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