San Francisco Classical Voice

Variety may not always spice up your life, but it can definitely be an asset in concert programming. This is especially true with university or other amateur chamber choruses, which are as much about the singers' development and experience as about entertaining an audience. The "Songs of the Spirit" concert last Saturday night at St. Albert's College in Oakland, featuring Sacred and Profane and the San Francisco State University Chamber Singers generally satisfied both of these aims, thanks in no small part to the guidance of Artistic Director Joshua Habermann.

Conducting both groups in a selection of sacred music spanning five centuries, Habermann presented an affable focal point for the performers and the audience, also presenting interesting commentary. Some pieces faltered, but the engaging program, the abundant energy of the singers, and Habermann's anchoring direction kept the occasional misses from stalling the full-length evening.

Sacred and Profane's adventurous opening set began nicely with a pair of Renaissance masterworks, William Byrd' s Ave Verum Corpus and Giovanni da Palestrina's Exultate Deo. The singers achieved a lovely choral blend and capably executed fine nuances of phrasing and dynamics. Especially beautiful was the hushed intensity of the closing section of the Byrd piece, "Oh dulcis, O pie, O Jesu, fili Mariae, miserere mei" ("O sweet, O pious, O Jesus, son of Mary, have mercy on me.").

The program continued with an unconventional piece, Manus Tuas, by English composer John Sheppard (c.1515-60). Paraphrasing the final words of Christ on the Cross ("Into Thy hand, O Lord, I commend my spirit for Thou has redeemed me, Thou God of truth"), the work juxtaposes chant (male voices) and polyphonic sections. The unusual chant ending, which reiterates the opening text phrase of the piece, might have had an unearthly effect, a casting off of harmonic weight as the spirit is unleashed. But the strong-voiced men's ensemble never communicated the free, "measureless" quality of chant, logging each note down with a artificial rhythmic regularity.

The last two selections of Sacred and Profane's set, Georg Schumann's Es ist ein köstliches Ding ("It Is a Precious Thing") and Zoltan Kodály's Jesus and the Traders (Jézus és a kufárok) demonstrated the chorus' limitations. The lengthy German text of Schumann's motet did not always come through clearly or uniformly, and the continuously modulating harmonies (late Romantic) seemed to surprise the singers as much as the listeners. The same disorientation and tentativeness marked the presentation of the Kodály composition, a forceful and demanding interpretation of Christ's clearing of the Temple.

The solo contributions of the SFSU Chamber Singers were more consistently strong and also more appealing to a general audience. Crisp, mellifluous singing and clear phrasing enlivened Hassler's Cantate Domino ("Sing to the Lord"). The singers effectively brought out the vibrant textures and harmonies of Charles Stanford's popular Beati quorum via integra est ("Blessed are the undefiled in the way" [1905]), and gave a charming rendition of Sweelinck's Hodie Christus natus est, ("Today Christ is born"), marred only slightly by the unevenness of the soprano echo parts.

The second part of the set featured American music, including two gospel arrangements, part of the chorus' proposed program for an upcoming tour in China. The Canadian composer Healey Willan's I Beheld Her, Beautiful as a Dove, on an eighth-century devotional text for the Office of Our Lady, provided a needed moment of repose before Moses Hogan's rousing anthem, I'm Gonna Sing ‘til the Spirit Moves in my Heart. The chorus delivered Hogan's musical proclamation with plenty of verve (though they should add a little clappin' and stompin' for the tour!), and brought the house down before intermission with William Dawson's clever arrangement of Ezekiel Saw the Wheel.

Combined in the last half of the concert, the two ensembles did not always make for a comfortable fit. While Schütz' double-choir, "echo" setting of Psalm 100, Jauchzet dem Herren ("Be joyful in the Lord") gave a nod to the strengths of each group, the other pieces did not necessarily benefit from bringing the 62 plus singers together. Anton Bruckner's Os Justi ("The Mouth of the Righteous") grew unduly bombastic as the large group pushed dynamics to extremes and the many sopranos competed for air space. Their most disappointing effort turned Bach's motet Der Geist hilft unsrer Schwachheit ("The Spirit helps our weakness") into an oversung and bloated exercise.

Fortunately the choruses developed a convincing unity for Rachmaninov's lustrous Ave Maria setting, Bogoroditse Devo, which rendered the most thrilling tutti moment of the evening. Habermann wisely chose as a finale Have Ye Not Known? (from The Peaceable Kingdom) by Randall Thompson, whose compositions are designed for larger choruses and offer the kind of big gestures that even as contrived inflations, are reliable crowd pleasers.

(Kristi Brown received her Ph.D. in musicology from the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently a Contributing Editor for the Music section of the Encyclopedia Britannica Internet Guide. She spends the rest of her time lecturing about music, singing, and playing with her two children, Caterina and Stefano.)

©1999 Kristi Brown, all rights reserved