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Pacific Collegium Sets the Bar High

Thomas Busse on May 17, 2011

On Sunday, Christopher Kula tested the mettle of his Pacific Collegium, artists-in-residence at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Oakland, with a challenging set of Bach Cantatas (nos. 22, 182, 54, 49, and 106). Kula's programs are ambitious and often overachieving, but he was able to contract a roster of first-rate players on period instruments who normally sit in the front chairs of the Bay Area's best and more established groups. It was satisfying to see the Pacific Collegium come so far.

Christopher Kula

Bach's devotees are reluctant to admit the composer wrote during the apex of the absolute worst period in German literature, between Grimmelshausen and Lessing (themselves not exactly household names). German had only emerged as a literary language with the writings of Martin Luther, which literary critics describe as “robust” — a flattering way to say “blunt.” This tradition of directness, which works so well in Praetorius and Schutz, did not easily reconcile with the age of pastel roccoco facades and powdered wigs. Bach's cantata texts abound with tortured metaphors and simplistic sentiments that can ring absurd in modern times.

It was hard to get excited about the dogma in cantata 54 for alto solo (“Sin shows itself to be an empty shadow and a whitewashed tomb. It is like the apples of Sodom, and those who get mixed up in it will not go to God's Reich...” yada, yada, yada). In a stroke of bad luck, countertenor Clifton Massey, for whom the cantata had been programmed, withdrew at the last minute, due to a family emergency. Although Jamie Apgar, stepping out of the choir with minimal rehearsal, lacked some of the vocal heft of a career soloist, he handled Bach's thorny vocal writing flawlessly.

It was, however, easy to get excited about Elizabeth Blumenstock's violin leadership.She reined in the band, keeping it balanced while eliciting a stylish and vibrant performance from the strings. In an extreme display of musical sensitivity, she occasionally mouthed the vocal part while playing.

Conductor's Strengths and Weaknesses

Kula conducted the other cantatas on the program. While providing needed assertiveness to the continuo team, he did not elicit the same vibrancy from the band as did Blumenstock. Inspiring first-rate instrumentalists to exceed their baseline is a skill distinct from drilling lower-quality bands and choristers. It is a skill gained through experience and listening; should the Collegium continue on its current trajectory, Kula has a strong level of musicality and drive on which to build.

Where Kula excels, in addition to his commendable drive to keep the whole shindig going, is in training boy choristers. The Collegium provides a regular afterschool program for boy singers as part of its monthly Evensong church services. The five boys appearing in the concert, balanced the fourteen men of the choir with a clear and charming tone and exemplary concert decorum. The cantata choruses on the concert are more difficult than the repertory of most high school and adult choirs in this country. The fact that this music could be sung with intrepid enthusiasm by 10-year-old boys says something about standards of singing and musicianship and about the effectiveness of traditional choral school education.

Sometimes less is more, though and the full program had the chorus and many soloists clutching their scores. Recent Bay Area-transplant baritone Nikolas Nackley might be forgiven for his attachment to the page, as he had much difficult music to sing. I suspect he will appear in front of local audiences frequently in coming years. Veteran tenor Neal Rogers' voice unfortunately betrayed considerable wear. Soprano Tonia d'Amelio sang with reliable beauty and aplomb, and the young alto John-Paul Jones communicated well with the audience in spite of his last-minute promotion to soloist. In a duet with oboist Fred Fox in cantata 22, I could hear how Bach challenged the limits of both instrument and voice. That such music can be prepared with only a few days notice, as was the practice in Bach's time, throws the modern tendency to plan concerts years in advance in a new light.

The concert's best work, the funeral cantata 106, draws its texts from scripture, and its comparatively strong text combined with Bach's inspired writing drew the afternoon's strongest performance from the choir and soloists. The fascinating scoring, for double violas da gamba and double recorders, underlined the diversity of textures and styles found in Bach's cantatas. Although the texts and purpose arises from a different age, the variety of musical expression, combined with the Pacific Collegium's enthusiasm, made for a very enjoyable performance.