San Francisco Classical Voice

La Rocca's elegant textures are contrapuntal, vaguely tonal yet in not quite officially tonal harmony. What's interesting is that he used several proven techniques of the great Renaissance contrapuntists. Finding a way to resolve a quasi-atonal texture into a cadence is, for example, a difficult problem. La Rocca fell back on an old technique of bringing melodic lines moving toward each other until the dissonance meets as a unison. His “O vos omnes” is a wonderful work which deserves to become a repertory staple, a minor masterpiece of modern choral writing.

Fung, Canadian by birth, is currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music in New York. Her compositions tend to center around the various cultures of Asia, as in the case of “Ketac!,” the Indonesian male choral chanting to accompany so-called money dances. For those, men sit on the ground, rhythmically chanting fast, aggressive syllables in unison and sometimes in polyrhythmic patterns. Fung more or less copied the technique, but using both the men and women of the choir. It made for an effective episode, a tad literal, perhaps, but none the worse for that.

The two other rewarding works sprang from Callaway and Erickson. Callaway's “Alleluia” used a reduced choir to pile up lines of quasi-organum on one another, a bit suggestive of the Ligeti technique. Only Callaway avoided the thick clusters common to Ligeti's early works and kept a firm hand on the tonal basis. It's a good, strong piece of work that I look forward to hearing again.

Erickson produced thicker, richer sonorities than most of his colleagues. His setting of the Jeremiah text called for more varied special effects than La Rocca's, yet in its way was every bit as devout in approach. Widely awarded and even recorded, Erickson is clearly not only a major talent but a complete professional. I enjoyed his piece to the hilt.

Lang's short motets used mild clusters to dramatic effect, plus a few theatrical gimmicks such as an off-stage soloist at one point. The music remained sincere and predominately passionate. It even included a few mild tonal clusters in setting “Deus in adjutorium,” “Nigra sum,” “Miserere” and “Audi coelum.” But why use Latin to support an English language production of a German play?

The other works ranged between so-so bourgeois commercialism and devotional kitsch. Glass' three songs struck me as merely boring rather than annoying. So he's made some progress there. Monk's “Return to earth,” using reduced choir minus conductor, was something akin to a happening as the singers sort of bobbed up and down while performing. I found the whole thing lacking in substance.

Whitacre's “Water Night” for 16 singers lacked any real profile, sounding like the product of some Composition 101 class. Miller, who is artistic director of Composers Inc, said in the notes for his “Three Metaphysical Songs” that he wanted to go back to early Americana, whatever that means. But his sugary pops style sounded at odds with his texts, drawn from George Herbert's poems. The impression I received was of music intended for the commercial education market, a thing cross-eyed with expediency.

The Pacific Mozart Ensemble regularly sings modern music despite its name. Director Grant has assembled a fine group of vocalists, exceptionally clean in elocution, beautifully balanced and matched in tone and with fine intonation. Only now and again, when the singers had to reach into the very high register, did the timbre turn grainy, but that's not unusual for any group. The quality was high throughout, and all the more admirable considering the varied demands of the program.

Like so much happening in the current Bay Area music scene, the concert suffered from yakity-yak disease. Why, oh why must they talk at us when we've come to hear music? Director Grant felt he had to introduce nearly every piece, largely repeating what was already printed in the program notes. And, alas, the worst of clichés, composer Callaway introducing her own “Alleluia.” Composers rarely speak interestingly of their own music. Composers' concerns are, if anything, details not shared by the world at large. What the composer or performer thinks of the music should be projected only through the performance of it, minus a preceding commercial. Imagine walking into a grocery to buy a carton of milk and being forced to endure a lecture on how cows are milked before receiving it, and you get the idea.