San Francisco Classical Voice

The Pacific Mozart Ensemble gave not one but two concerts last Saturday night at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley. The concert before intermission gave us music from the llth to the 20th centuries, celebrating the millennium just ending. After intermission, the concert presented music from each decade of the 20th century. And all of it was in celebration of the Ensemble's twenty years of "crossover" singing of repertoire for voices unaccompanied by instruments.

The first concert, sung mostly under the baton of director Richard Grant, and mostly in the dark, made imaginative use of space in the church. The repertoire--except for Machaut's Rose, Liz, Printemps, Verdure--was sacred, from the Roman Catholic church, in Latin. The second concert was entirely secular, performed mostly by small ensembles, in full light at the front of the house. There was some irony in the fact that light was nonexistent or dim in the first concert, for which texts in Latin and English were scrupulously printed in the program, and there was plenty of light for the second concert, sung in American English with no printed texts.

To get to the first concert; it began in the llth century (in the dark) with the chorus spread out around the audience, the men chanting a Salve Regina by Hermannus Contractus. The chant was beautifully unanimous but rather square in style. With the l2th century, we got Hildegard von Bingen's Ecclesia, chanted with somewhat more flexibility by the women, partly in unison and partly solo. I was particularly taken with the anonymous soloist who sang "Et cognoverunt etiam." The l3th century brought us Pérotin's Viderunt Omnes, which the program notes had warned might take us aback by its "aggressive, edgy quality." That advice did not prepare us for its being alarmingly out of tune.

Machaut did the l4th century proud with his roses and lilies. Celebrated as both poet and musician, he may well have written the lovely poem; and the English translation (unattributed) was a beauty (as I discovered after the lights came on). The performance by a solo quintet was hearty, not particularly polished, but somehow well suited to the rambunctious music.

With the l5th century, we got the whole chorus up front, a little more light, and a beautiful performance of a psalm by the incomparable Josquin des Prez. For William Byrd's l6th century Sing joyfully,the choir reshuffled from the usual organization in sections to a more mixed-up arrangement of voices--an unhappy choice for a piece in which one would like to hear each contrapuntal entrance come from a particular direction. The disposition of forces, however, was very imaginative for the l7th century Miserere of Gregorio Allegri--the main choir in front, with four solo quartets in the four corners of the room, alternating with the main chorus in a recurring refrain. Here, as elsewhere in the evening, I was impressed with the vocal depth of this group. It includes a number of high quality singers secure in both solo parts and ensemble.

When we got to the l8th century, I began to question thehistoricity of the program. When you have Bach and Mozart to consider, why pick Lotti's Crucifixus? It is indeed a wonderful piece, and was expressively sung, but it harks back to earlier styles in a century which started with high Baroque and ended with the revolutionary Classical style--both unrepresented in this concert.

Bruckner's Ave Maria was a nice choice for the l9th century, but seemed to need a few more strong low basses. Stravinsky and Barber represented the 20th century: Pater Noster and Ave Maria for the former and Agnus Dei for the latter. Stravinsky's vocal music seems not to invite a flexible approach to language, but even so, I would like to hear a choir make it sound less square than this one did. Barber's arrangement for a cappella voices of his string adagio, lovingly sung, brought the first concert to a close.

Crossing over to concert number two, the full Ensemble began the century with George M. Cohan's "Give my regards to Broadway." From the second decade, we got a barbershop quartet singing W. C. Handy's "Memphis Blues," from the 20s, "Ain't Misbehaving," and from the 30s a terrific arrangement of "Bei mir bist du schön" done to a turn. The full ensemble came back for "Chattanooga Choo-choo" (40s), then small ensembles did two pieces from the 50s: "Four" by Jon Hendricks/Miles Davis, and a very funny "Sh'boom Medley." The 60s were represented by "My Girl" (Robinson and White) and the Beatles' "A day in the life"--the whole chorus doing a great imitation of the tremendous instrumental buildup at the end. "Boogie Nights" (70s) and "Love Shack" (80s) got us a good long way from "Ave Maria" (remember concert number one?). And the 90s were taken over by Paul Simon--two selections from his ill-fated Broadway show "The Capeman"--for the excellent reason that director Grant loves this music. One suspects that this, rather than a slavish devotion to history, was what determined the choices of repertoire all along.

In fact, many of the pieces in the second concert were arranged for a cappella chorus and small ensembles by the very talented ensemble tenor, Jim Hale, who excels both as arranger and as a singer. Although we supposedly had heard a century's worth of popular styles---Broadway, barbershop, jazz, Yiddish, Glenn Miller train music, rock & roll, Motown, the Beatles, disco, Latin--the sound was less diverse than one might expect because so many songs were filtered through the taste and style of one arranger. And because he and his performers have such excellent taste and style, we didn't mind a bit.

(Anna Carol Dudley is a singer, teacher, lecturer emerita at San Francisco State University, and director of the San Francisco Early Music Society's Baroque Music Workshop.)

©1999 Anna Carol Dudley, all rights reserved