|
EARLY MUSIC REVIEW
September 25, 2004
|
By Anna Carol Dudley
Magnificat launched its season of 17th-century music with a concert called “Vanity of Vanities,” devoted to Iacomo Carissimi, fielding an all-star cast of five singers Saturday night at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley. The concert began with solos and duets in chamber cantatas and ended with two oratorios in which solo passages alternated with choral sections sung by the same five soloists.
Sopranos Catherine Webster and Jennifer Ellis, tenors Paul Elliott and Scott Whitaker (Elliott mostly singing alto parts) and bass Peter Becker were all at the top of their form, consistently sensitive to the words, spot-on in tuning, varied in their use of dynamics and vocal color, masters of coloratura, peerless in stylistic delineation of recitative and aria — above all, bringing wonderfully expressive music fully to life. They were supported by a gifted continuo team: Hanneke van Proosdij at the small organ, playing on a continuum from full-throated sustained chords to rhythmically articulated punctuations of sound, and lutenist David Tayler extracting a rich variety of sounds from his theorbo, producing buzzy, rafter-rattling low tones at dramatic moments.
Webster and Becker sang ”Alma, che fai, che pensi,” a dialogue between the Body (bass) and the Soul (soprano). (Magnificat wisely provided a program with both the Italian and the later, Latin texts and translations.) The dialogue begins on a note more theatrical than musical, formed by the rhetorical idea of contrast between body and soul. When body and soul finally come together in a duet, it is tuneful and measured, and from then on the writing is increasingly focused on the singing voice, melodic and florid. The next duet was given to tenors Elliott and Whitaker, Elliott often in his alto range: ”Fuggi quel ben” — flee the love that is fickle, and run ("corri, corri") to that love which is constant, passionate and enduring. The singers of both the duets were fully engaged, expressive and vocally assured.
Then Jennifer Ellis tore into a long solo, ”Suonerà l'ultima tromba” (The last trumpet shall sound) — the opening salvo in sounding the concert's theme of Vanity. In a striking, trumpet-like sound, she sang of the certainty of death and its terrors. Then, in a whole new voice, she sang that we are dust and ashes, and life is short. She sang dreamily of dreams, speakingly of the voices of the dead, traversing her whole range from high to low as she came back to "morte." A tuneful, measured section delivered the moral: Life is short; give thought to how you live. A final rhetorical outburst exhorted the impious who ignore the warnings of Heaven and sleep their lives away, ending with a pianissimo "dorme." Carissimi's music is stunning, and Ellis's performance of it was the high point of the concert — rich in dramatic feeling, virtuosity, word painting, vocal coloring and dynamic changes. All five singers went on to the concert's eponymous oratorio, Vanitas Vanitatum (Vanity of Vanities). One by one, they looked to people's desires (Whitaker), good advice (Webster), the riches of the land (Elliott), wealth (Becker), musical entertainment (Ellis, in a burst of coloratura). Each was answered by the chorus: "Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas" (All, all is vanity). Carissimi keeps coming back with the choral responses. Where are the sages, scientists, orators? "Pulvis sunt et cineres" (All are dust and ashes). Where are the heroes and the kings? "Solum nomen superest" (Only the name remains). It was enough to send me home to “Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero,” by William Makepeace Thackeray. I think I'll re-read it. The concert ended with another oratorio, Historia de Baltazer — the familiar Old Testament story of Belshazzer's Feast, from the book of Daniel. Whitaker began the story, describing the splendid feast. The two sopranos and the choruses sang dance music full of celebration and earthly delights. Webster and Ellis aced a beautifully matched duet of praise for King Belshazzer. Then suddenly Paul Elliott saw the famous handwriting on the wall, accompanied by one long sustained chord on the organ, joined by the theorbo as Belshazzer saw the terrible sight. Becker sang Belshazzer, promising that whoever could interpret this omen would be rewarded with a purple robe and a golden necklace.
When Daniel was brought forward, Belshazzer, fully embodied by Becker, addressed him in a voice of extended range and mighty low tones. Daniel, sung by soprano Webster, had to give him the bad news: "Mane:" The Lord will destroy your kingdom. "Tekel:" You have been weighed in the scale and found wanting. "Phares:" Your kingdom will go to the Medes and Persians. The king, shaken but true to his word, bestowed the robe, the chain and a part of the kingdom on Daniel. Belshazzer was killed that night, and the kingdom was divided between the Medes and the Persians. In a great final chorus, Carissimi turns again to the theme of the vanity of this world. He treats the text brilliantly, using repetition and word painting to fine effect, and ending with an abrupt plummeting from the high points of life to the depths ("subito subito labitur"). Magnificat's Warren Stewart programmed instrumental interludes between the Carissimi pieces, joining his cello with the continuo and the violins of Rob Diggins and Jolianne von Einem in two canzonas by Carissimi's teacher Frescobaldi. The strings also played chorus accompaniments and instrumental ritornelli in the oratorios. Hanneke van Proosdij played, particularly expressively, a remarkable toccata by Michelangelo Rossi, full of sudden shifts in harmony, virtuosic passagework and an extraordinary long super-chromatic section.
(Anna Carol Dudley is a singer, teacher, member of the faculties of the
University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco State University lecturer emerita] and director emerita of the San Francisco Early Music Society's Baroque Music Workshop.)
|
