San Francisco Classical Voice

CHORAL MUSIC REVIEW

Pacific Collegium
Pacific Boychoir
Amici Catellorum Impromptu Philharmonic
Tonia D’Amelio
Joseph Wright
Christopher Kula

September 9, 2006

Tonia D’Amelio

Joseph Wright

Christopher Kula

	E-mail this page
	We Appreciate Contributions

A Refreshing Tribute

By Michael Zwiebach

Amid the 9/11 artistic commemorations offered as a salve for our collective post-traumatic stress, the Pacific Collegium’s season opener at Trinity Episcopal Church in San Francisco was refreshingly low-key — free of bombast and self-advertisement. The Collegium offered Gerald Finzi’s anthem, Lo, the full final sacrifice, and Maurice Duruflé’s consolatory Requiem (the 1950 version with full orchestra). In a sensible gesture, the Collegium and the amusingly named Amici Catellorum ("Friends of Dogs") Impromptu Philharmonic donated the proceeds to the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation.

The artistic results were generally of a high order, especially from the chorus. Christopher Kula’s conducting got to the heart of the matter, threading the lyrical and dramatic passages of the Requiem together into a finely crafted, satisfying entity. Also on the program was Finzi’s song-cycle Dies natalis, gently interpreted by soprano Tonia D’Amelio.

Finzi’s sensitivity to poetry and language made him an eminent contributor to both the art song and choral genres. Lo, the full final sacrifice was composed on commission just after the end of World War II, but it is not overtly commemorative in its musical rhetoric. Instead, as Kula’s program note observed, "it is less a single grand work than a set of musical cameos, each illustrating a different facet of the original poetry." It begins with solemn chanting, quickly passes into a vein of pastoral melody which is interrupted by a boy choir, and then it moves to a crescendo with trumpets and cymbals ("in new powers to thy name and praise.") The Allegro that follows brings in a pair of male soloists for one passage, and a return to the initial theme comes after a long diminuendo.

Moving passages, passionately sung

As an exercise in choral singing, the piece allowed the choir to show off its wares — excellent diction, well-blended sound, and exceptional dynamic control. The diminuendo closing out Finzi’s lovely Amen setting was particularly magical, the final n held to a quiet hum that reverberated in Trinity’s generous acoustics. The boys’ part in the piece was impeccably performed by members of the Pacific Boychoir. The song cycle Dies natalis (1939), an idealistic musing on childhood, was sung striaghtforwardly by Tonia D’Amelio, with beautiful phrasing and a clear understanding of the emotional meaning of the words.

In both Finzi pieces, the orchestra was a bit overbearing, never achieving a true pianissimo. There was also some fogginess in the strings’ counterpoint and some middling intonation. Things improved markedly in the Requiem — the piece was obviously given the majority of rehearsal time.

If you want to sound educated in a discussion of Duruflé’s Requiem, you can't forget to mention that the work is based on Gregorian chants. Like its model, Gabriel Fauré's Requiem, he omits the Dies Irae movement (although a few lines of the Dies Irae prayer appear in the Libera me movement, which he sets in a terrifying way). Almost every composer up to Fauré used the prayer as the centerpiece of the Mass. Like the other pieces on the program, it mostly eschews grand rhetoric, although the full orchestra version does have some impressive climaxes. Unlike many settings of these texts, Duruflé’s could clearly fit into the confines of an actual church service. That makes sense, considering that the composer was a church organist.

From the beginning, Kula emphasized a structural reading of the piece: Each tempo flowed easily into the next, pauses were well-judged, and the climaxes, including the deafening one in the Libera me, were arrived at naturally. The chorus and boys choir helped, of course. They refrained from shouting in fortissimo passages, and nailed their entrances and cutoffs. The individual sections built the imitative entries of the Kyrie into a beautifully sung and controlled climax. That effect carried over into the dark, mysterious opening of the Domine Jesu Christe, with its bass clarinet accompaniment, which is swept away by a sudden fortissimo.

The turning point of the Requiem, as in Fauré's, is the Pie Jesu movement, following the Sanctus. This was given to a boy mezzo-soprano, and special mention must be made of Malcolm Lane’s performance of this critical solo. Although he sang a shade too softly, he was sweet-toned and pitch-perfect, with excellent attacks in a difficult melody that seems to pour forth endlessly. Also excellent was baritone Joseph Wright in the Libera me movement, although his solos were brief and didn't allow for showing off. The orchestra was more convincing there, the winds blended beautifully early on, and the individual solos each gave a distinct profile. Like the chorus, the orchestra avoided overdoing it in the big moments.