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CHORAL MUSIC REVIEW "A Candlelight Christmas" In Earnest December 15, 2001
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By Robert Commanday
There can be too much of a good thing, and in Christmastide, that happens a lot. It happened Sunday afternoon with the San Francisco Bach Choir's “Sing We Nowell: A Candlelight Christmas” program in Berkeley's First Congregational Church. David Babbitt's group is a fine, well-balanced group, and at almost 100 members, more chorus than choir.
The Bach Choir produced an extensive, earnest program. The Choir's warm, full sound, with consistently good intonation, remarkable for so large a chorus, enveloped a packed house in as much Christmas music as anyone could want at a sitting, or more. The program drew on carols of all types, the traditional, and the more rarefied (from the 14th and 15th century) including the charming Scottish Rorate coeli de super (a fresh breeze late in the long program), carols monophonic, dance-songs, hymn-like, story-telling and processional. There was even a splendid late-15th, early 16th century polyphonic Magnificat with antiphon, O bone Jesu by Robert Fayrfax. It is a magnificent piece, with chant lines signaling key sections, varied vocal combinations, and glorious extended melismas on single vowels at phrase endings that tie off finely woven polyphony.
Some of this program was a cappella, and when the Choir was singing while standing around the audience, down the side and center aisles, the reverberance was splendid. Babbitt's plan for variety included switching the choir around into different groupings and having accompaniment for most of the program by four bell-ringers and an ensemble of two recorders, cello, string bass, organ, these two forces sometimes together, sometimes apart. Vocal soloists were used in a trio in John Dunstable's Santa Maria, and a quartet in the Holly and the Ivy, The Legend of Mr. Dives and Poor Lazarus and the prolix “Variations on the (Irish) Wexford Carols.” Even that much contrast of musical activity wasn't enough, given the constancy of the general sonority and especially, Babbitt's tempos, and because of an insistence on singing all stanzas, and the amount of time the physical production took.
Facing a running time of over two and a half hours, and starting late to begin with, it was just not smart theater to march the choir in as if it were the House of Lords entering the Abbey, and to plan the post-intermission candlelight procession and audience serenade (in the darkened house) that would overextend its welcome. To be sure, the 13th and 15th century English selections were excellently sung and grand to hear. There was a curious failure to identify arrangers of large pieces simply called “Traditional,” with two exceptions, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree in traditional 20th century choral or cathedral style by Elizabeth Poston, and O Little Town of Bethlehem by Vaughan Williams. The inclusion of modern carols, to hear what recent eras have musically to say about Christmas, might have helped leaven this feast.
All the makings were there, and excellent choir, good ensembles. The capacity audience seemed to drink it in avidly, needing the communal celebration. Fine. That's the way it was meant to be. For this listener, it was saturation.
©2001 Robert P. Commanday, all rights reserved |