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EARLY MUSIC REVIEW
April 8-10, 2005
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By Anna Carol Dudley
Two of the Bay Area's most illustrious musical ensembles — Chanticleer and Philharmonia Baroque — combined over the weekend in a concert of 18th century Spanish music that could almost be called Holy Toledo. The music wasn't wholly holy, and one piece was from Madrid; but the featured composer was Jaime Casillas, maestro di capella of Toledo Cathedral. Two of his works were settings of common church texts, sung in Latin, and two were folk-based villancicos, sung in Spanish, on texts which make passing reference to Holy Communion but sound suspiciously secular. (The program provided English translations of the villancicos which were amazingly impenetrable, so it is possible that there is more religious metaphor in the 18th-century Spanish texts than meets the English eye.)
For most of the concert, Chanticleer was grouped in a double-choir arrangement, eight singers on stage left and a quartet on stage right. Most of the solo work was assigned to the quartet, and the personnel of the quartet changed from piece to piece. The program started with a mass by Casillas, Missa pange lingua, solo singing interwoven with choral singing, the quartet sometimes functioning as soloists and sometimes folded into the total choral sound.
A similar formation was used in the two villancicos. "Alarma, alarma sentidos" (wake up, senses) was military in style, with bugles and drums ("clarinos y caxas") mentioned in the text and enthusiastically provided by Philharmonia. Chanticleer entered with gusto into the spirit of the thing, repeatedly combatting, resisting and fighting in the refrains (" ¡A combatir! ¡A resistir! ¡A pelear!). "Jornaleros de la viña" (workers of the vineyard) would be a good song for Labor Day. It goes on about the joys of hard work rewarded by rest. The program notes say that these two villancicos are "dedicated to the Holy Sacrament." The first mentions bread once, and Sacrament once; the second alludes to a banquet and suggests that wine is involved, and that's about it.
The one piece from Madrid was a lovely Salve Regina (Hail Queen, Mother of mercy) by José de San Juan. The concert ended with a stunning Stabat Mater by Casillas. For the Stabat Mater, Chanticleer was arrayed in two groups of six. Three splendid choruses framed the work, eloquent, moving and rich in harmonic invention: "Stabat Mater" at the beginning (sorrowing Mother at the foot of the cross), "Pro peccatus" in the middle (for our sins, Jesus is tormented) and "Quando corpus morietur" at the end (when my body dies, let my soul glory in Paradise). In between, solo voices in various combinations sang the verses, some accompanied by paired oboes, recorders or flutes, some by solo cello (beautifully played by Phoebe Carrai), others by various continuo combinations or pizzicato strings. The Stabat Mater was the hit of the evening, for both Chanticleer and Philharmonia. The twelve singers of Chanticleer produce a lovely blended choral sound, and they are also accomplished solo singers. In this concert, almost everybody had a solo turn and dispatched it well. Particular kudos to soprano Dylan Hostetter for his pure, floating unforced sound (e.g. in the Salve Regina), to alto Clifton Massey for his expressive, moving contributions all evening, to bass-baritone Mark Sullivan for the strong anchoring of his quartet, and to soprano Eric Brenner for his virtuoso aria in among the Alarms. Sunday night the performance was at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley. It will be repeated Tuesday, April 12, at the Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church, Friday at Stanford's Memorial Church, and Saturday at Mission Dolores in San Francisco.
(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.)
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