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CHORAL REVIEW August 1, 2002
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By Robert P. Commanday
Something nice blew in from Texas last Thursday, Conspirare, a choir of 30 trained, mature singers, singing in the Piedmont Community Hall, the first of three Bay Area concerts. The venue is unusual but then so is the venture. Though based in Austin, Texas, Conspirare has 11 singers from as many states plus the 19 Texans who were assembled for a residency at Mills College, to rehearse and pull this program together.
The results, in the preview that Thursday's concert turned out to be, were impressive. These good, non-operatic singers blend well by section, and are obviously experienced enough to produce excellent independent polyphony — Bruckner's Os Justi meditabitur sapientiam done beautifully, and the first of two "Requiem aeternam" movements of Herbert Howells' Requiem — and to produce solid, chordal sonority (movements from Einojunahi Rautavaara's Vigilia). The conductor, Craig Hella Johnson, known here from his six-month leadership of Chanticleer, is musical and very careful, as evidenced by his selectivity in personnel and the particularity of the performances.
The potential is there, the makings of strong and involving performances and this "company of voices," as it called, often comes close. It will need repeated performances and interpretive confidence for them to sing the climactic lines free and ecstatically, to build the dramatic, and to bite into the key words that project the feeling in which the meaning is imbedded. In his conducting and interpreting, Johnson seems a contained person, focusing on specific qualities, but he doesn't get outside the performance enough to draw out certain expressive elements. Johnson typically ties off the closing note or chord clean, for example, with an exactness or neatness that frustrates the milli-second attenuation needed to draw the piece to a close poetically, artistically, satisfyingly.
Among the loveliest qualities achieved by Johnson and Conspirare (the word means harmonizing in feeling and spirit, agreeing, or literally, breathing together), is a natural, finely shaped lyrical phrasing, as in the two Brahms songs from his Op. 32, "Abendständchen" and "Vineta." (The German diction was, let us say, Mediterranean, and the critical word stress , modest). Howells' large Requiem was given a rich, finely cast performance. Howells' music is refined in its style, elegant in the variety of his sonority-sensitive choral writing. Memorable elements were in the setting of Psalm 121, in the lyricism ("he that keepeth me will not sleep"), a haunting quality ("neither the moon by night") and the unexpected pianissimo at the phrase ("The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil." Also there was the radiance in the first setting of the "Requiem aeternam," mirrored in the second. Then, to end this highly individual Requiem, on the text, "I heard a voice from heaven," the music expanded into its richest harmony and texture. From the other major work on the program, the Vigilia by the Finnish contemporary Rautavaara, Johnson selected five movements of the 14. He and the Conspirare capture word and phrase rhythm readily, the swing, the cadence and the shape. This served the Rautavaara style in these vespers eloquently. The cumulative momentum of the litany could be felt in the "1st Katisma" with its Alleluia refrain, the chordal chanting in the "Psalm of Invocation," in the "Sticheron to the Mother of God" and in the final blessing. The soloists drawn from a quartet carried their parts well. All in Finnish of course, which raised a little question. The program offered no works in truly adventurous contemporary or even late 20th century styles. Was it more important to dedicate so much to learning a huge Finnish text in a good, distinctive but hardly arresting musical idiom rather than to have this considerable vocal talent present something of real musical excitement?
Among other compositions were Veljo Tormis' modern setting for women's voices of an Estonian folk song, "The Singer's Childhood," Cynthia Gonzalez, the soprano soloist. There was William Averitt's "Afro-American Fragments" ("Song for Billie Holiday" to an accompaniment of marching chords, but understated in performance, no bite, "Feet o'Jesus" and the vigorous "Fire"). There was a warm performance of Stephen Foster' "I dream of Jeannie," Brett Barnes singing the baritone solo attractively. In a patter piece taken at a hellbent pace, by Michael Dellaira, the chorus ripped a a prose narrative, "The Campers at Kitty Hawk," celebrating the birth of the age of the flying machine. In the popular mode, they sang "Texas Girl at the Funeral of her Father" by Randy Newman. The evening with its shortened program, given without intermission, Johnson commenting on the pieces, was not intended as a formal affair. The audience sat at tables, with wine offered and the personable members of the group mixing with the audience, the gracious "Texas friendly." It's hard to project the future of a such a group that cannot rehearse together regularly. The singers are good musicians and vocally sound, though no exceptional voices could be heard on Thursday, no soaring top and no booming bass. (Johnson announced that their basso profundo was, for the evening, laid low). All things together, it was a promising start for a distinctive new choral institution. (Robert P. Commanday, the editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, was the music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle, 1965-93, and before that a conductor and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.) ©2002, Robert P. Commanday all rights reserved |