San Francisco Classical Voice

The Baroque Choral Guild marked 20 years of music-making last Sunday evening a with a surprisingly low-key concert at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley. To celebrate both the Christmas season and the Guild's landmark anniversary, music director Mitchell Covington assembled a thematic program, aptly entitled "Gloria!" and featuring Gloria in excelsis settings by Victoria, Monteverdi, Bach, and Vivaldi. But the chorus had difficulty sustaining the gala mood and, after an impressive preamble, hedged on the festive vim and sparkle until the finale.

The concert opened with traditional Christmas-pageant pomp. Chanting a 12th-century Gloria plainsong fragment, the chorus entered the sanctuary and encircled the audience, continuing uninterrupted with an anonymous 18th-century canon. In this visually effective but musically perilous formation, friendly acoustics facilitated a remarkably balanced sound that enmeshed the audience in a weave of polyphonic threads from two Renaissance compositions, the Gloria from Victoria's O quam gloriosum Mass, and a double-choir piece by Jacob Handl, Laus et perennis gloria ("Praise and eternal glory").

Standing close to the audience, the singers exuded an infectious excitement: a hyper-attentiveness stemming, in part, from knowing that every note could be clearly heard and, more to the point, attributed. Once on the main stage, however, the singers retreated not only from the spectators, but also from the music itself. Their awkward and unenthusiastic rendition of Monteverdi's Gloria, demonstrated how much more it takes than correct notes and occasional dynamic changes to make a piece come alive. Italian music from the early seventeenth-century (an experimental period by anyone's reckoning) requires a supple and precise vocal technique that can handle the minute changes in articulation as well as the demanding ornamentation.

The Guild chorus seemed hardly aware of the excellent example provided by the period-instrument Jubilate Orchestra that accompanied them, and the result was like hearing two different pieces simultaneously. More often than not, the agile phrasing and rhythmic zest of the orchestral playing were covered over by a bland and sluggish choral legato.

The choral singing and general ensemble improved in the next selection, Bach's Cantata No. 191, Gloria in excelsis Deo, which was no doubt familiar to many listeners as the prototype for the Gloria of the composer's monumental Mass in B Minor. The chorus neatly handled much of the tricky passage work of the opening movement, but the expressive level remained maddeningly moderate. Soprano Kathleen Gauthier and tenor Neal Rogers combined pleasantly for the centerpiece Gloria Patri duet, while flutist Louise Carslake shone in the graceful obbligato part. In the final Sicut in erat in principio ("As it was in the beginning"), Covington's tempo was too leisurely, but the orchestra, carrying the chorus forward, sustained the sense of perpetual momentum.

The chorus' most committed performance came last in Vivaldi's Gloria in D, RV 589. Even the occasional sag in intonation did not mar the haunting effect of the second movement, Et in terra pax hominibus voluntatis ("And peace on earth to men of good will"), with its chromatic dynamism. A vivacious spirit filled the following choral movement, Gratias agimus tibi ("We give Thee thanks") and also the final Cum sancto Spiritu.

Kathleen Gautier returned to give a sweet, if unremarkable interpretation of Domine Deus, Rex coelestis, but was almost overshadowed by the much richer voice of chorus soprano, Debra Blodgett in the duet, Laudamus te. Chorister Audrey Wong, a 20-year member of the Guild, sang the Domine Deus, Agnus Dei and warmed the hall with her smooth, viola-weight alto. The Jubilate Orchestra, including an ace string section and veteran Susan Harvey at the organ, played finely throughout the evening. Solo contributions by Gonzalo Ruiz (oboe) and Elizabeth Reed (cello) were superbly executed.

(Kristi Brown received her Ph.D. in musicology from the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently a Contributing Editor for the Music section of the Encyclopedia Britannica Internet Guide. She spends the rest of her time lecturing about music, singing, and playing with her two children, Caterina and Stefano.)

©1999 Kristi Brown, all rights reserved