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CHORAL MUSIC REVIEW
Haydn Singers
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A Worthy Debut
By David Bratman
Few people were in Palo Alto's rather chilly First Presbyterian Church on Friday evening, so perhaps the news did not get as widely spread as it should have: There's a new chamber choir in the Bay Area. (They repeated their program in Berkeley's Church of St. Mary Magdalen on Saturday.) The 18-member choir is called the Haydn Singers, and their virtues lie in excellent artistic direction and a fascinating repertoire.
The director is Paul Flight, probably best known locally as the countertenor who sang the title role in Philip Glass's Akhnaten at the Oakland Opera two years ago. But he's also a fine choral conductor, who was able to coax his largely nonprofessional ensemble into careful, precise renditions, intricate counterpoint running hither and yon, and a sure unity that didn't get hitched up by tricky bits. If the flow was less than perfectly relaxed, it was never anything other than well-executed. As for intonation, there are moments in most choral works where the composer sends one vocal line out on a limb without any audible means of support, and the singers did not always pass this acid test. Nor were the solo singers of consistent quality. Rita Lilly deserves to be singled out: She is a soprano of strong voice and a fine bell-like tone.
But whatever its imperfections, the concert was fun throughout to listen to, and never painful to the ear. And that's what one wants and expects in local music-making.
Flight chose the program to show off some unjustly little-known high classical church music repertoire. There were two Haydns, a Salve Regina in G minor by Joseph and a motet, Christus Factus Est, by his brother Michael. There were two works by W.A. Mozart, both highly dramatic pieces from his brief Sturm und Drang period in 1774-75: Misericordias Domini, K. 222, and a Missa Brevis in F, K. 192. And there was one pseudo-Mozart: a motet, Adoramus Te, by Quirino Gasparini, that for decades was included in the Köchel catalog of Mozart's works as K. 327 because Mozart and his father admired it and a copy was found among their papers. The motets were a cappella, and the other pieces were accompanied by the Haydn Players, a string quartet plus organ. Joseph Haydn wrote an especially prominent organ part for his Salve Regina, probably to play himself. The end of the program brought a real treat: four German partsongs by Joseph Haydn, surprisingly humorous – or not so surprisingly if you know Haydn. Each was accompanied by Nalini Ghuman Gwynne on piano. The best came last: Die Berendsamkeit, a tribute to wine. Like other songs on the same subject, it begins with a warning against water: “Freunde, Wasser machet stumm” (Friends, water makes one mute). At the end of the song, the chorus suits action to thought by returning to the opening line and whispering it. A clever close to a most imaginative concert.
(David Bratman is a librarian who lives with his lawfully wedded soprano and a wall full of symphony recordings.)
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