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CHORAL MUSIC REVIEW
Spirited Conclusion to Fifth Anniversary Year
August 25, 2001
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By Anna Carol Dudley
While other musicians have been off to the beaches or mountains or at bucolic summer music festivals, the San Francisco Lyric Chorus has been preparing an ambitious final program to round out a year's celebration of its fifth anniversary. Saturday night, Robert Gurney brought the finished product to the First Congregational church of Berkeley: a performance of Bach's Magnificat, followed by Mozart's Mass in C Minor.
It was interesting to listen to Mozart's music with Bach still in my ears. Bach sets his text with great rhetorical force, and his counterpoint is complex and subtle. Mozart's fugal subjects can be square, but his love of the human voice and its power of emotional expression shines through everything he writes.
The chorus really hit its stride in the Mozart. Sometimes I wanted more "pull" to the vocal line, as in the "Qui Tollis," where the chorus needs to keep the sound going while the orchestra chops at its accompanying chords. But generally the sound was full and expressive, with nice dynamic shading.
In the Magnificat, the choral sound was sometimes a bit muddy in the live acoustic of the Congregational Church, with the sopranos being the best at articulating their parts. Tempi in the opening "Magnificat," the "Omnes generationes," and "Fecit potentiam" were just right, with a nice bounce. But the triplets of the final "Gloria" were a little slow and labored, and the return of the "Magnificat" material a shade fast and superficial. Gurney could get more out of Bach's moments of high drama, like "dispersit superbos" ("He hath scattered the proud") and "Abraham et semini eius" ("Abraham and his seed, forever").
Among the soloists, top honors go to Jennifer Ellis and Catherine Webster, who had the most to do and did it beautifully. Webster's "Laudamus Te" in the Mozart combined beautiful sound with dazzling coloratura. Ellis' "Et incarnatus est" was a musical triumph, perfectly dovetailed with the solo turns of flutist Louise Carslake, oboist Gonzalo Ruiz, and bassoonist Danny Bond. Both sopranos negotiated Mozart's huge leaps and soaring phrases with aplomb, and both possess musicianship of a high order. To see and hear their pleasure in dueting on "Domine Deus" was a treat. Tenor Scott Whitaker and Bass Tom Hart sang their Bach solos and Mozart ensemble parts competently. Carol Mersey and Barbara Greeno did a good job on alto solos in the Bach. The Lyric Chorus comes across as a spirited community of singers. They were given strong support by the Jubilate Baroque Orchestra, made up of many of the best early music performers around and led by the outstanding playing of concertmaster Rob Diggins. (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 of the San Francisco Early Music Society's Baroque Music Workshop.) ©2001 Anna Carol Dudley, all rights reserved |