It was a pleasure to hear music that wasn’t pulled straight from the Eric Ericson repertoire list — not that there is anything wrong with Knut Nystedt or his music, but choir programs have begun to look a bit cliché, particularly when it comes to programming works from that part of the world. For the most part this program featured works by living composers, two of whom were born in the 1960s. Moreover, there was a lovely balance of sacred and secular, with diverse texts ranging from the Stabat mater to Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to make much of time” which begins famously with the Carpe diem text, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…”

The Stabat mater, in fact, was one of the highlights of the evening. The setting by Polish composer Anna Ignatowicz began at a surprisingly upbeat tempo with harmonies that were somber enough to convey the text, but not overly melancholy or rhetorical. In her solo singing, soprano Hannah McMeans’s gossamer voice shimmered above the tight harmonies of the chorus, who rendered the text sensitively if not always perfectly clearly. All the soloists for the evening’s program were drawn from the choir and it was clear that the ensemble boasts some very high quality voices.

Another beautiful solo moment was that of mezzo-soprano Laura Betinis in Nils Lindberg’s setting of Herrick’s text. Betinis’s voice had a richness made all the more beautiful by the edge of folk styling she brought to Lindberg’s piece. The alto section in general was quite good, often providing better rhythmic articulation, sharper and more precise diction than the other sections of the chorus. The other Lindberg work on the program, Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?, was lovely and unapologetically romantic, but the choir’s diction was inconsistent in quality. The ensemble interpreted the final couplet with excellent dramatic impact, but seemed uncomfortable with the harmonies on the first iteration of “life to thee.”

The basses and the altos both shone in Urmas Sisask’s Deo Gratias. This intriguing setting began with a charged ostinato in the basses, and it became increasingly contrapuntal in texture. The altos demonstrated incredible rhythmic accuracy in their syncopated and challenging entrances, never disrupting the momentum of the work, but instead dancing seamlessly in and out of the texture. Christensen’s direction also helped highlight the accents and shape of the phrases that gave the piece such tremendous flair. The ensemble should get a lot of mileage out of this piece — I hope to see it on future programs.

The chorus excelled in the rhythmically active pieces, and demonstrated their timbral versatility in the satirical and humorous Pseudo-Yoik by Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi. The program featured two other works by this composer, including a rather tender setting of the “Fairies’ lullaby” from Act II, Scene 2 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This work opened with some extraordinarily captivating falling chromatic lines that sank into a backdrop for Shakespeare’s text. The work, especially in its final bars, warrants close attention by conductor and chorus alike, and both Christensen and the ensemble were up to the challenge. The final work by Mäntyjärvi, No more Shakespeare Songs? seemed trite by comparison, and a somewhat lacking finale for what had otherwise been an excellent concert. The chorus did an admirable job of spitting out the text in the gradual accelerando, but the work paled in comparison to others performed that evening, such as Józef Swider’s textural and innovative Canticum Canticorum, a lively and fresh setting of the Song of Songs. Here the tenors offered a very solid and consistent sound, effectively compensating for some occasional scooping in the basses. The lower men’s voices, however, redeemed themselves with the absolutely lovely final chord on “amica mea.”

The only work on the program that was not a cappella was Arvo Pärt’s beautiful The Beatitudes which featured organ accompaniment. The choir opened with this work from the organ and choir loft of King’s Chapel. While the famous text is a litany of sorts, the chorus at times seemed a bit too dry and pragmatic in their approach. The gradual dynamic build was excellent, and there was a beautiful sense of connection as the piece moved in and out of its close dissonances. The inner voices kept the harmonies solid, and this was the one work on the program where the sopranos could have come out a bit more. Christensen’s organ playing, particularly in the final section, was sublime, but came across as almost startlingly dramatic given the static recitation of the chorus. This may have been an interpretive choice, I suspect, because the chorus produced such a ravishing and glorious chord on “Rejoice” in the final statement that they seemed a different choir altogether.

The weakest performance of the evening was The Garden of Roses by Yakov Gubanov. The solo parts seemed unwieldy and the soloists seemed too glued into their music, so much so that many times it was hard to tell who was singing. The work did showcase the group’s rhythmic energy in the faster section near the end, but the harmonies were unstable and the work lacked the finesse of the other fine performances on the program.  Luckily, it was followed by a strong and appealing performance of Cyrillus Kreek’s Onnis on inimene. Kreek, who died in 1962, has not enjoyed the same international reputation as his fellow Estonian Arvo Pärt, but this work revealed a keen awareness of older techniques, while keeping the texture fresh and modern. The work featured lovely treble lines anchored by slowly moving lower voices.  The treble voices kept the “Hallelujahs” rhythmically active against the intriguing modal sonorities. The men, likewise, maintained the buoyant spirit when the parts switch roles toward the end of the work.

While the bars of downtown Boston filled with the cheers and yells of Patriots fans, the rafters of King’s Chapel resonated with the sounds of singing and artistry brought forth by a very fine choir. The King’s Chapel Concert Series is a treasure for Boston concert-goers, and the Chapel’s “home-team” did themselves proud.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Perlman and De Silva opened with Schubert’s Rondo for Violin and Piano in B minor, D. 895, Op. 70 “Rondeau brilliant.” Relative to what followed in the program, one might consider this a “rough start,” if only by comparison. The 1826 work is, as Steven Ledbetter notes, a rather “big-boned sonata form movement” that at times seems self-conscious in its attempts at virtuosity. The strength of the work lies in its thematic and harmonic ingenuity, and Perlman brought forth every lyrical nuance and dynamic marking, particularly in the slower and more expressive sections that contrasted the flashy opening gestures. De Silva’s rhythmic articulation sometimes came across as muddied — perhaps even over-pedaled — but his ability to navigate through Schubert’s harmonic labyrinth lent cohesion to the entire performance. The Allegro section was better matched between the two performers than the opening Andante, and almost imperceptible inaccuracies were subsumed by the sheer force of musical character.

The Brahms Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100 delivered a palette of the best of Brahmsian lyricism crafted into three movements of engaging thematic connectivity and collaboration on the part of Perlman and De Silva.  In the middle movement, Andante tranquillo,  Perlman cradled his instrument with tenderness, leaning into it with his eyes closed in prayerful reverie, relying upon only the smallest changes in articulation and gesture. The melodies, while always lyrical, remained intimate and never threatened to become more than they needed to be.  I wished silently for the size of Symphony Hall to shrink suddenly, to oblige Perlman’s understated artistry.

Joachim’s violin arrangements of the Three Hungarian Dances by Brahms, originally for piano duet, can easily become overly rhetorical and culturally cliché in the wrong hands. Perlman, however, delivered more Brahms than Magyar, with intense motivic attention in the instrument’s highest tessitura and a clear sense of ritardando to finesse the characteristic rhythms. De Silva’s sound in the second of the three dances seemed heavy for the toe-tapping flourishes of Perlman’s playing, but his stunning cascades in the last piece had his fingers dancing on the keyboard in tandem with Perlman’s dexterity on the fingerboard. However, in light of what followed after intermission, the Schubert and Brahms works seemed mere warm-ups.

If Camille Saint-Saëns’ Violin Sonata No. 1 in d minor, Op. 75 had been the only piece this pair performed, I would have left without complaint.  As with the Brahms sonata, Perlman maintained the chamber music essence when appropriate, but both he and De Silva seemed to play with more assuredness and energyThey were in top form, seamlessly exchanging textures and themes with mature and engaging sensitivity. Perlman played the beautiful hymn-like theme in the second movement with prayerful ardor, while the piano maintained the energy of the work underneath the violin’s lyricism. When the instruments switched musical roles, De Silva’s sense of the theme was breathtaking, as Perlman interlaced it with delicate filigree. It was the final movement, however, when fireworks erupted. The Allegro molto is  a tour de force of elaborate rapid passagework, yet the display of impeccable technique was never overwrought or virtuosic for its own sake. De Silva and Perlman bubbled over with vitality and vigor, and one marveled at Perlman’s ability to captivate without the theatrics of bodily movement and facial expression that often upstage musicality. The final moments of the work were unforgettable, and Symphony Hall hosted a thunderous roar of sound as the audience almost unanimously leapt to its feet in applause. It was enthralling to witness such a sincere expression of awe and gratitude for what was one of the most memorable musical experiences I’ve ever had.

But Perlman was not done. Riding the wave of the audience’s euphoria, the performers returned to the stage, followed by the page turner, who had her arms full with a large stack of music books. Perlman, with his characteristic charm and affability, joked that he was examining a printout of all the pieces he had played in Boston since… 1912.  The first “encore” was  Kreisler’s Sicillienne and Rigaudon ( in the style of François Francoeur). The virtuosity seemed to be a party trick in comparison with the Saint-Saëns, but whereas the latter required true collaborative virtuosity from both performers, this piece truly was Perlman’s show. His second encore reminded one that virtuosity is not restricted to the nineteenth century, with the delightful Allegro by Joseph-Hector Fiocco, an eighteenthth-century Flemish composer whose “fame,” as Perlman quipped, largely stems from the work’s inclusion in the Suzuki violin method books. The Kreisler transcription of Weber’s “Larghetto” offered a respite from Perlman’s endless supply of dexterity, instead filling the hall with sounds from a musician well aware of the fine line between expressive and maudlin. Ever the public entertainer, Perlman continued his humorous commentary in his introduction of Kreisler’s Tambourin Chinois.  It would have been incredibly easy to hear this piece as parodistic with the stereotypical pentatonicism that reflects Kreisler’s clichéd “orientalism,” but Perlman brought forth the well-crafted gestures and variety of colors that make the piece more than a blasé experiment in cultural misappropriation.

With four encores, no one would have complained had Perlman and De Silva ended the concert there, but the seemingly tireless performers concluded the evening with two more works: Albeniz’s Tango for Violin and Piano and Franz Ries’s Perpetuum Mobile. The latter piece, in particular, is often subject to characterless displays of gratuitous speed (not that the composer had much more in mind for it), but Perlman’s musicality was ever-present, with De Silva providing the harmonic and thematic backbone for Perlman’s entertaining pyrotechnics.

For the third and final time that afternoon, the audience rose to acknowledge De Silva and especially Itzhak Perlman, who is both a consummate musician AND performer, and who has transcended the stratified classifications of “elite” vs. “popular” in great service to modern American culture.  As the woman behind me tapped her foot to Perpetuum Mobile, I felt grateful that in this day of superficial reality TV heroes and fabricated personas, “celebrity” is not always a dirty word.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Blue Heron and Ensemble Plus Ultra joined forces for the opening work, O Maria salvatoris, a votive antiphon by English composer John Browne (active around 1500). Conducted by Blue Heron’s director, Scott Metcalfe, the work instantly transformed the space with a soaring soprano invocation of the Virgin Mary. There was a glorious match of sound between the two ensembles, and Browne’s constantly shifting textures were executed seamlessly, largely due to Metcalfe’s conducting. His sense of timing was refined and elegant. Never wallowing excessively in the sonorities, he allowed momentum to interpolate the melismatic gestures into the texture, rather than focusing on them as virtuosic moments of soloistic grandstanding. Highlights of the work included some excellent countertenor moments in the fourth verse, which featured only male voices, and the particularly resonant texture of the fifth verse, which pitted Paul Guttry’s solid bass voice against the clear bell-like sonorities of the sopranos. The final verse, beginning with the text “Theologia disputans” in a reduced texture, demonstrated how involved this polyphony actually is, no doubt with a conscious reference to “theological dispute” and its various complexities. In keeping with the text painting, the final word of the antiphon, “melodia,” was a blossoming of polyphony that showcased the true exquisiteness of both these ensembles.

The Salve Regina a 5 by Richard Pygott (c. 1485-1549) featured Blue Heron alone, but one was struck by the richness of sound even without the combined forces. There is always something in this choir to make you listen more deeply, to lean forward and witness the inner voices. Their contrapuntal nuance is at times astounding, and this performance was a perfect example. Pygott’s work is full of harmonic surprises and shifting textures, with the verse tropes reduced to three voice parts. In the first section of the work, the tenors leaned overly into some of the high notes, but the men-only trio on the second verse trope, “Virgo Clemens, virgo pia…,” was one of the most stunning moments of the evening. Here the melodic lines were exposed gently but with extreme precision and articulation. The final line of the piece, “O dulcis Maria, salve,” was remarkable in its gradual increase of intensity from the exquisite reverence of “dulcis” to the blinding brilliance of “salve.”

Ensemble Plus Ultra sang one voice on a part in their presentation of various works by Victoria. The opportunity to hear them alone was intriguing, as it demonstrated the variety of timbres and tones between the two choirs. This group has a reedier quality to their sound than does Blue Heron, and this was a boon to the pieces featuring the two groups together. Michael Noone, who founded Ensemble Plus Ultra in 2001 and is on faculty at Boston College, was more gestural in his direction than was Metcalfe. Victoria’s Ave regina caelorum, with its dance-like shift of rhythm on “gaude gloriosa” and the unexpected momentum of “et pro nobis,” made good use of this gestural approach to the music. The group’s sensitivity to phrasing was profound, and the final utterance of “exhora” was indeed a most inspiring exhortation.

The three Victoria works on texts from the Song of Songs were not conducted, featuring smaller sextets in different combinations. Vidi speciosam featured three women and three men, with exposed voice parts that brought forth the more madrigal-like sensibilities of the text, such as the rising lines on “ascendit” and the flowery and gorgeous melismas on “lilia” (lily of the valley).  Except for a slightly unwieldy entrance by the men on “Quae est ista quae ascendit…” and some weaker tenor phrasings, the performance was a highly nuanced presentation of this most secular of sacred texts. In Vadam et circuibo civitatem, which featured four men and two women, the soprano sound was more robust, providing a good balance to the counterweight of the stronger bass part. The group’s diction is excellent in general, but this work particularly exploited the expressivity of Latin vowels. The women shone in their short duet on “quia sic adiurasti nos?” and the cadences were all beautifully executed. Whereas Blue Heron occasionally suffers from too strident a tenor sound, here Ensemble Plus Ultra suffered from an overly languid tenor sound. In was particularly noticeable in this work because of the aforementioned gusto heard in the outer voices. The makeup of the sextet returned to three women and three men for Nigra sum, sed formosa filia Jerusalem. The rhythmic articulation on the opening phrase injected the entire work with good energy, and was an excellent conclusion to Ensemble Plus Ultra’s solo set.

Michael Noone led both ensembles in Victoria’s Laetatus sum, which contained some of the strongest and weakest performances of the concert. The solo choruses seemed tired, but then there were moments of utter brilliance as soloists brought out the lines of “super domum David.” The tutti statement of “Fiat pax in virtute tua” was strong and well-balanced, but led to a section that seemed unusually insecure. The transition to the doxology was smooth—it seemed the ensemble was reinvigorated by this passage, which was not included as part of the translation, perplexing some audience members.

The finale of the evening was Francisco Guerrero’s Duo seraphim, featuring both Blue Heron and Ensemble Plus Ultra, conducted by Noone. This gorgeous text presented the composer with multitudinous musical opportunities, which he exploited to the fullest. The overlapping and imitative entrances of the “two seraphim” were positively angelic. The first statement of  “plena est omnis terra gloria eius” (…the whole earth is full of his glory) was sung with such passion and commitment that I felt a familiar catch in my throat as emotions took over and the music reached that level of sublimity that we always hope to hear from live performance.

One gratifying experience of the night actually came from the audience. How wonderful it was to hear people talking during intermission about the music; or Blue Heron; or the January 2011 review by Alex Ross in the New Yorker of Blue Heron’s recording of sacred music by English composers Hugh Aston, Robert Jones and John Mason.  In his review, Ross commented on Blue Heron’s “quiver of passion” and indeed, it is this passion that sets them apart from many other early music ensembles. While the sense of serenity and the ethereal was never sacrificed, Blue Heron’s performance, along with Ensemble Plus Ultra, was artistically satisfying in its commitment to an earthly zeal for the repertoire. The early music movement can no longer rest on its highly controversial laurels of historically informed performance, or on producing ambient music for the new age movement. This repertoire is relevant, and can be made increasingly so by performances with assiduous attention to detail, ardent love for the music, and nuanced interpretations of texts once thought to be the ultimate poetry of sublimity. Blue Heron’s top-notch artistry, Scott Metcalfe’s program notes, and the pre-concert lectures as well as their commitment to education (see the “Performance Practice Corner” feature in the program), make this group a fantastic model for the fully-realized potential of early music performance in the 21^st century.

Blue Heron and Ensemble Plus Ultra repeat this program on Sunday, October 16^th at St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church in New York City.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Mezzo-soprano Janna Baty and pianist Gloria Chien offered a sensitive and passionate rendering of the 1953 Hermit Songs. Baty sang with a particularly effective intensity in the “Wiegenlied” of the set, “St. Ita’s Vision.” Her lower range seemed full of possibility, including the haunting moments in “The Crucifixion,” although it was sometimes over-laden with heavy vibrato. Chien’s collaboration on the piano was sublime, as she pulled an endless variety of textures and tones from the instrument, weaving them in and out of the vocal line. The pair had a good sense of the structure of Barber’s cycle, and while I found “The Heavenly Banquet” a bit too dramatically overwrought, Baty’s subtle treatment of the enigmatic couplet, “Promiscuity,” was convincing. These two lines can provide a tremendous challenge for a singer without stage presence, as it is completely reliant upon the musicians to carry the implications of the text — “I do not know with whom Edan will sleep,/ but I do know that fair Edan will not sleep alone” — that, even though it hails from the 9th century, seems curiously out of place with the other songs. To be sure, Baty and Chien both emphasized the subtext, and it provided a good emotional pivot for the last three songs in the cycle. The tenth and final song, “The Desire for Hermitage” is the one that links back to Barber’s biography and certainly describes the composer’s preference for solitude when composing his music. He ends his Hermit Songs with what is perhaps the most poignant text of the entire work: “Alone I came into the world, alone I shall go from it.”  The delivery of this final moment can make or break the performance, and Baty delivered her most gorgeous and reverent tone of the evening here, supported by the mystical and meditative reverie that Chien conjured throughout the final piece.

Christopher Rouse’s Compline, from 1996, was the perfect complement to the Barber. The ensemble, featuring Deborah Boldin (flute), Kelli O’Connor (clarinet), Joanna Kurkowicz (violin), Gabriela Diaz (violin), Scott Wooleaver (viola), Rafael Popper-Keizer (cello), and Anna Reinersman (harp), played with incredible musicality and technical mastery. Rouse’s piece, although it refers to the last of the canonical Hours, contains a sense of religiosity that, as Rouse says, “is more observational than participatory.” A reminiscence of a 1989 trip to Rome, the work is a study in rhythmic and timbral interplay, dividing the ensemble into a string section and winds with harp. The bells of Compline are there but are not cliché or even rhetorical, instead part and parcel of the textural fabric, underlying the vivacious rhythmic ostinato first heard in the violins, viola and cello. This work highlighted the extraordinary ensemble playing of Kurkowicz, Diaz, Wooleaver, and Popper-Keizer, who played as a single entity, providing a constant rhythmic drive underneath the bright winds of Boldin and O’Connor.

One of the most marvelous moments of the piece — and there are many — is when Rouse creates a spatial effect during a homophonic section with long bowing, passing the music from the winds and harp over to the strings. The ensemble was seamless in its ability to create its own Klangfarbenmelodie, deftly creating continuous lyricism over the different timbres of each instrument’s portion of the melody. The entire ensemble was sensitive to the fluctuations in musical energy that the work requires, and this was most evident in the return of the opening elements of the piece, wherein the main rhythmic motive is tossed from instrument to instrument and then phased into a dramatic tutti declamation. Toward the end of the work, the passage of quiet stillness based on sustained tones demonstrated that these are musicians who know what it is to listen collaboratively, and the overall impact of this moment was startlingly moving — so much so that I partially wished Rouse would have ended the work with it. I could not resent the coda, however, with its slow-moving Baroque harmonic progressions leading into a unison homage to chant, that brought back the bells of Compline in the winds. The work is one I hope to hear again, and I can think of no better ensemble to play it than those who were on stage last night.

For a night so injected with reflective spirituality, Beethoven’s Trio No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 97, was the perfect finish.  The “Archduke” Trio, so-named for Beethoven’s famous patron, Archduke Rudolph, has one of the most beautiful slow movements in all of chamber music literature, presaging the pathos of the famous “Heiliger Dankgesang” in Op. 132.  The only element of the performance I found less than superb was the sound of the piano, particularly in the opening movement. I don’t know if it was merely the acoustics at First Church, having the piano lid completely open, or heavy pedaling on the part of Chien, but the piano had an echoing and almost muddy quality to it that I didn’t hear during the Barber songs. Strangely, the sound was better suited to the third movement, when it did not detract from Beethoven’s scoring. Acoustic issues notwithstanding, Chien’s playing was remarkable, demonstrating for the second time that night that she is an amazingly sensitive collaborator and ensemble player. The balance of dynamics in the first movement Allegro moderato was astonishing, heard clearly in Popper-Keiser’s most understated and beautiful pianissimos that danced with Kurkowicz’s glistening lines. The Scherzo movement, with its haunting and relatively obscure trio theme, suffered only the mildest intonation issues, and was whimsical without being flippant in the scherzo. All three performers had stellar rhythmic articulation, keeping the energy high, but clearly acknowledging that it was an inner movement, not a finale. The slow movement was tender and gorgeous, with highly nuanced playing, particularly on the part of Chien and Popper-Keiser. The trio never let the lighter sections of the music destroy the overall pathos of the Andante, and the transition into the finale Allegro moderato was a phenomenal moment of musical finesse. The trio did not rush this movement, keeping the tempo in check relative to the Presto yet to come, and always playful and tuneful, even amongst the flurry of notes. Saving the best for last, the Presto that closes out the movement was virtuosic and celebratory, embodying the indisputable musicianship and talent of the three performers.

Chameleon Arts Ensemble should feel confident in its concept and the execution of its programming. My guest, a first time Chameleon attendee, enthusiastically said he’d come to see them again. Last night’s concert demonstrated how relevant both old and new chamber music can be in these days of uncertainty for performing arts organizations, and I am hopeful that Boston’s audiences will nurture and support such creative and quality performances.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

That the work unearths an important celebration of humanity during one of history’s darkest hours cannot be debated. Andreev’s score is somewhat derivative in places, embracing Britten’s War Requiem and moments of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms (to name but a few examples), but weaves together various rhythms and styles in an effective tapestry. Maestro Henry Leck led the goliath ensemble with requisite efficiency and clear gestures. The Boston Modern Orchestra Project played exquisitely, and the driving entrance of the strings before the chorus of Jews who sing, “We’ll not tremble in cowardice, silenced by fear…” was a goose-bumps moment. Kravitz, portraying the insidious and anti-Semitic Commissar Belev, sang beautifully and brilliantly. In the fifth movement, when he switched to the part of Metropolitan Kyril (the benevolent foil to Commissar’s horrendous plans), Kravitz could have done more vocally to differentiate between the characters. Osborne’s singing (as the ambivalent King Boris and the heroic Dimitar Peshev) was bright and fluid, but his stage presence seemed oddly timid, as if he was reading the music for the first time. Neli Andreeva, who gave a stunning performance in the first half of the concert with the Philip Kutev National Folklore Ensemble, sang beautifully, but came across as stylistically incongruous. When singing the part of Liliana Panitsa, the nefarious Commissar’s secretary and lover, her voice was hued with “pop” inflection, and I was more than once reminded of Astrud Gilberto, the famous Brazilian singer. Had Kravitz and Osborne not been singing cantor-like and operatically (and appropriately so), the contrast might not have been distracting.

The large chorus was effective in the different groupings, but it was a pity not to hear more integration of the Kutev National Folklore Ensemble’s Bulgarian harmonies, as their sections were some of the best in the work. The Indianapolis Children’s Choir, in particular, gave a spectacular performance, with expressive singing and beautifully precise diction. The chorus as a whole, however, often sounded like they were far away, not due to their position behind the orchestra (which maintained an excellent sense of balance save for one moment in the sixth movement), but because of the bizarre amplification that plagued the entire production.

The first half of the concert was devoted to performances by each of the participating choirs (except for the National Philharmonic Chorale and George Mason University Singers). Given the sheer size of the Wang Center, I assume that is why the groups were miked.  However, amplification was not well suited to choruses, yanking out individual voices (and not always appropriate ones) from the texture, and forcing the piano sound upon the audience. This was slightly remedied in the second half, although the glockenspiel seemed to have a rather odd auditory pride of place. I was seated in the tenth row or so from the front, so it is possible that the sound was much better experienced by those sitting behind me. What was most offensive, however, was the incessant fuzz from the speaker on the right side of the stage — a terrible distraction, particularly during the quieter choral numbers on the first half — and several patrons complained. Both the sound technician and house manager explained (with varying degrees of tact) that they were only informed of the need for microphones that very day. Regardless of who made what decisions, the end result was disheartening.

Aside from the very distracting aural fuzz, each of the four choirs gave solid performances in the first half. The Philip Kutev National Folklore Ensemble highlighted the unique harmonic texture of Bulgarian folk music and a variety of different instruments, such as the kaval and gadulka. Khorikos, under the direction of Jesse Mark Peckham, delivered some of the finest performances of the evening. It premiered a work composed by tenor soloist Charles David Osborne entitled “Whosoever Saves a Single Life,” presented “in memory of the 11,343 Jews of Thrace and Macedonia who perished during the Holocaust.” The piece was lovely, but the chordal piano accompaniment seemed superfluous, given the work’s prayerful meditation. The performance of Monteverdi’s “Zefiro Torna e’l bel tempo rimena” was nuanced and attentive to the text. The group closed with a rather glorious performance of John Tavener’s “Song for Athene,” only temporarily sullied by ridiculously premature applause from some audience members. I applaud Maestro Peckham for sticking his hand behind him and quieting the clap-happy audience as the chorus finished out the piece.

This concert was quite obviously an inspired and meaningful undertaking by many performers and only really suffered from several production issues, including a printed libretto that was inaccurate. (I assume significant textual changes were made after the libretto was printed.) The revised libretto that came from the stage was indeed much better than that which was handed to the audience, so my complaint is minimal. The incorporation of sacred texts in Bulgarian, Hebrew, and even Ladino, was seamless and effective, although Scott Cairns’s libretto was inconsistent in its poetry, sometimes imposing a rhyme scheme that made the words seem trite. All performance and technical issues aside, the Songs of Life Festival is to be applauded for bringing this life-affirming testament of hope to the public. I trust that Sunday’s performance in New York will not be the last, as the musical and humanitarian message deserves to be heard.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music of Bard College and Boston Conservatory.

Dervoed opened the concert with Leo Brouwer’s transcription of Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata K. 208, one of three Scarlatti sonatas he performed that evening. His approach to the work was gentle but self-assured, with a good sense for phrasing. His cadential figures were not overly stylized and helped maintain a good momentum. Prior to the other Scarlatti sonatas, K. 213 and 178, Dervoed inserted Leo Brouwer’s 1968 work Canticum, which, while it makes use of extended techniques, was very “Baroque” it its moments of delicacy. Dervoed’s playing here was very refined, and the pianissimo sections were compelling. In the “Ditirambo” movement, Dervoed slowly developed the misterioso tension of the work but exercised a certain amount of restraint so that the relative modernity of Brouwer’s composition did not awkwardly jut out of the Scarlatti works. Dervoed maintained excellent rhythmic delineation throughout, adjusting the dynamics and articulation during recapitulations, in the Scarlatti Sonatas K. 213 and K. 178, transcribed for guitar by Claudio Giuliani. In K. 178, in particular, Dervoed conveyed the fun and almost folksy character without leaving behind the elegant Baroque phrasing.

Dervoed, who was the 2010 GuitarFest Competition winner, showed great technical skill, particularly in Giulio Regondi’s “Introduction and Caprice”, Op. 23. He deftly maneuvered between the virtuosic nineteenth-century passagework and graceful dance-like sections, demonstrating a more aggressive energy than in any of the other previous works. Toward the end, some of the florid runs seemed a bit rushed, as though he might get ahead of himself, but he maintained just enough control to keep it in check.

Joaquin Turina’s Sonata, Op. 61, originally dedicated to Andrés Segovia, artfully mixes Spanish drama with French sophistication, as indicated in the program notes, but moves in and out of these two styles without warning. Dervoed was fairly seamless in shifting between Turina’s passages, although his fingerwork seemed more labored than in the Regondi. The outer movements are full of flamenco flamboyance, but the middle Andante is comparatively one of repose and quieter moments. Dervoed had a lovely sound here; he caressed each phrase with the same care he brought to the Scarlatti Sonata, K. 208. Even the faster outer movements both featured a lovely “tranquilo” rocking theme that Dervoed seemed to relish in amidst all the fireworks.

Dervoed closed his half of the program with Kevin Callahan’s The Red Fantasy, which, like an Italian ricercare written in an improvisational fashion, opened freely, giving way to a thematic section with little Latin punctuations. While the notes call attention to Callahan’s use of a “‘rock-and-roll’ vernacular,” my sense was more that of wandering through a contemporary art museum while looking at paintings of Velázquez  — not quite incongruous, but at times a bit stretched in its attempts to join the two.

The second half of the program started around 9:30 pm, after a longer-than-average tuning session for the harpsichord during intermission. John Gibbons, eager to begin, sat down and immediately launched into his first set of works by Girolamo Frescobaldi. Gibbons’s half of the concert was more coherent in terms of programming, with a clear direction toward the Bach Italian Concerto, BWV 971 via the roads of Frescobaldi and Vivaldi.

In Frescobaldi’s Toccata ottava (Libro primo), Gibbons’s artistry shone; the continuity of his melodic phrasing sparkled with sprightly gestures. The “Corrente” from Balletto terzo, was very much a “corrente” with its Italian sense of ornamentation, but had the underlying gentility of a French courante. Gibbons illuminated madrigal-like moments in the passacaglia of the Balletto. The influence of Frescobaldi on Bach (transmitted via Froberger then Buxtuehude) was most apparent in the Toccata settima (Libro secondo), with its passages of both musical and emotional contrast. The final work of the set was Frescobaldi’s “Partite sopra Follia,” which, as Gibbons observed, is a set of variations on what is known as the “early folia” (also “fedele”) in Italy, as opposed to the “later folia” theme made most famous by Corelli. The program note was not clear on this distinction, so I appreciated his clarification for the audience. Gibbons asserted the theme, but always seemed very aware of the lovely sonorities and rhythmic possibilities of each individual variation.

Bach’s arrangement of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in D Major (RV230/ BWV 972) is a fascinating exercise in transcription. Vivaldi’s penchant for perpetual motion and motivic repetition is most obvious in the opening Allegro, and Gibbons delivered a wonderful performance that gave energy and life to each iteration. Although I must admit that I miss the strings in opening of the Larghetto, Gibbons brought forth melodies that twinkled brightly, but never too stridently in the upper registers (and I acknowledge Allan Winkler’s instrument for its part in this). The final Allegro exploded with gaiety and joy, and Gibbons truly transformed the harpsichord into timbral rainbow for the rousing finale.

Bach’s “Aria variata alla maneira italiana” BWV 989, upstages many of its models with its unique figurations. Gibbons exposed the timbral variety through careful attention to articulation and characterization. While at no means in the same field as the Goldberg Variations, these “Italian” variations do demonstrate Bach at his most melodious and are full of contrapuntal ingenuity.

Of course it was the Concerto nach Italienischen Gusto, BWV 971, that was the long-awaited finale for the evening. Gibbons’s performance was engaging, dramatic, technically solid, and emotionally expressive. His carefully controlled sense of tempo in the Allegro never let the impulse of urgency take over. His Andante was indeed an actual “andante,” instead of stagnating on every ornament and cadence, as some pianists do (luxuriating in the resonant capacity of their instrument). The Presto demonstrated the virtuosic talents of both Bach as a composer and Gibbons as a performer. The finale was fine compensation for the late start of the concert and second half, but programming a concert like this obviously presented some challenges that will need reviewing. The overall concept of including harpsichord in a GuitarFest concert made a lot of sense, particularly given Eliot Fisk’s holistic approach to music. I did find it a shame, however, that Gibbons’s half of the concert was not a BEMF “Fringe” concert, as the two festivals are running concurrently, and the performance would have likely been enjoyed by many BEMF patrons.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music of Bard College and Boston Conservatory.

In a program titled “Triumphs: Renaissance Conquests in Love and War,” The King’s Singers on June 14 at Jordan Hall presented several madrigals from two important and related collections: the 1592 Italian Il Trionfo di Dori and English composer Thomas Morley’s 1601 compilation, The Triumphs of Orianna. Textually, all these madrigals are tied together by the final line — either “Viva la bella Dori” or “Long Live fair Oriana.” While the composers featured in both the Italian and English collections did not always demonstrate the highest level of individuality and creativity when setting this predictable text, The King’s Singers approached the refrain in refreshing ways so that the closing line was always born anew in each piece.

Many choral ensembles in Boston who do not specialize in early music, but who program madrigals, have a tendency to over-sing and completely obfuscate the intricate lines of counterpoint and sometimes subtle humor of the text. I mention this only because The King’s Singers gave absolutely sublime and almost flawless performances of this repertoire. Most astounding, however, was the complete lack of pretension in their musicmaking. The music was taken seriously, to be sure, but one was transported to the early days of madrigal singing, when groups of amateur singers would gather with their part-books, seeking “pastime with good company,” to quote King Henry VIII. Countertenor David Hurley, in particular, seemed ready to burst with infectious joy and merriment.

These men are world-class entertainers and a great deal of fun to watch, but it is their sound that marks this as one of the best concerts I have ever attended. When singing together in homophony, their voices, whether in combinations of four, five or six, blend into one of the clearest, yet warmest, a cappella sounds you can hear on the scene today. Their harmonies are sonorous, yet not austere, as is the case with some groups extolling the “English sound.” Extraordinary bass Jonathan Howard deserves much of the credit for this. As one concertgoer observed, Howard easily could have overpowered most of the singers on stage, but his talent was in his artful restraint. Even in the bass-heavy pieces, His presence was almost subversive in its strength, providing a secure foundation but allowing the other voices to float and soar.

The singers are well acclimated to the challenges of madrigal singing and surpassed expectation in their expressivity and attention to detail. Their diction, particularly in the Italian madrigals, was not just merely precise, but musical. In “Un giorno a Pale sacro” (One day on the sacred Palatinum) by Ippolito Baccusi, the “ch” (in Italian, a hard “k”) consonants were springboards from which the rest of the line blossomed. They also beautifully navigated the typical emotional transition of an Italian madrigal without pedantic cadences and overwrought drama. This helped highlight not just the beauty of the text and its musical setting, but of the madrigal form as well, especially in the case of Giovanni Gabrieli’s setting of Oratio Guargante’s text “Se cantano gl’augelli” (If the birds are chirping). The text painting, too, was approached with great nuance, even when the composer relied on fairly standard rhetoric, as in Gastoldi’s “Al mormorar de liquidi cristalli,” in which the “murmuring” stream features the standard melodic oscillations.

The imitative polyphonic textures were always delicately transparent and expressive. Each singer has clear soloist capabilities, but there are no delusions of operatic grandeur. We only received a tiny glimpse of tenor Paul Phoenix’s potential bravura in the final cadence of Morley’s “Hard by a crystal fountain.” Every single madrigal on the first half was beautiful and artistic, but it was Michael Cavendish’s “Come gentle swains” that was most breathtaking and achingly gorgeous. From the first glorious notes sung by Paul Phoenix to the almost hushed and mysterious reiteration of the final couplet, this was one of the most stunning performances of the evening.

The second half of concert turned to far more earthy depictions of Parisian street markets (Janequin’s “Le cris de Paris”), sensuality and flirtation (Josquin’s “Baisez moy” and “Allégez moy”), and non-politically correct cultural mockery (Josquin’s “Scaramella” and Lassus’s “Dessus le marché d’Arras”). The grand finale was Janequin’s masterpiece of mimesis, onomatopoeia and verbal virtuosity, “La Guerre.” In both Janequin works, the ensemble produced an incredible sonic smorgasbord, from the amazing drum-rolled “r”s to what I can only describe as Renaissance beat-boxing, When the text demanded it, the singers were appropriately campy but never let the humor subsume the music.

The one work on the second half that did not rely upon witty wordplay and humorous texts was Lassus’s “Paisible domaine” (A haven of peace), programmed as a contrast to Janequin’s boisterous depiction of Paris. Like the Cavendish on the first half, this was yet another astounding moment in its almost prayerful quality. Jonathan Howard’s gifts for stunning bass lines were on display, but each of the five voices (countertenor Timothy Wayne-Wright did not sing in this one) sounded as smooth as the best wind ensemble, painting a picture of an idealized Paris as “a safe place of rest/Where justice is certain/And knowledge sublime.”

The end of the normal-length program seemed to come much too soon, and The King’s Singers obliged the audience, who gave their second standing ovation of the evening, with a classic encore in their repertoire: a wonderfully pantomimed version of Alessandro Striggio’s “Il Gioco di Primiera” (The game of Primiera), wherein five of the singers take part in an Italian card game, complete with props and theatrical whimsy.

I have only one criticism of the evening, and it has nothing to do with the performers, but I direct it toward the administration of the BEMF. Upon entering the hall, patrons received a one-sided yellow sheet of paper with the names of the performers, the pieces, and the composers… nothing else. In order to get access to the program notes, and more important, the translations, one had to purchase the $10 BEMF Festival Booklet. While an impressively large tome, it put anyone who was only in attendance for this particular concert at a severe disadvantage. As a reviewer, I received a free copy, and I don’t take issue with the price of the grandiose program. I do, however, find it rather questionable and irresponsible that single-concert patrons were not given translations, especially for a program of madrigals and chansons. Even most BEMF “Fringe” presenters offer a program with translations, assumedly with far greater budget constraints than the BEMF-featured concert of The King’s Singers. Luckily, the performers themselves provided engaging commentary from the stage that covered the major points of the excellent program notes and the gist of most of the texts, but the omission of the translations from the “regular” program is a mistake. It need not be glossy or glamorous, but a copy of the translations respects the people who have paid money for the concert and no doubt understand the importance of the poetry and its interaction with the music.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

“Bacchus et Erigone” is the second act of the opéra-ballet Les fêtes de Paphos, which premiered in Paris in 1758. A different librettist contributed each of the three acts, but they all present vignettes from the classic love stories in ancient Greek mythology: Venus and Adonis; Bacchus and Erigone; and Cupid and Psyche. Mondonville (c. 1711-1772), whose reputation in modern times has been overshadowed by Rameau, was a gifted composer and enjoyed the patronage of Mme. Pompadour in Paris as well as many other prestigious posts. While a rather flighty story, the score for “Bacchus et Erigone” reveals a composer very at home with styles of the later French Baroque, but who readily integrated more contemporary and “foreign” styles.

All four soloists were very good, but the clearest lines and most stylistically nuanced performances came from Claire Raphaelson as Erigone and Owen McIntosh as Mercury. The opening aria presented a slight balance issue between Raphaelson and the orchestra, but it is a sign of the careful direction of Edward Jones that this was quickly remedied and did not arise for the rest of the performance. The music for Erigone is vigorously diverse, and Raphaelson easily transitioned between the sweet lyricism of “Dieux de Cythère, enchantés ce séjour” (Gods of Cythera, enchant this place) to the more rousing and vivacious energy of her closing aria, “Cessez, guerriers, cessez …” (Warriors, desist…). The final aria was particularly remarkable as she skillfully brought more energy and verve to each reiteration of the “Cessez” text, lending a charming sense of chutzpah to the character. Ulysses Thomas provided a solid and musical performance as Bacchus, but seemed less comfortable with some of the ornamentation and dramatic gesture. Thomas’s vocal strength was a boon to the active and tuneful arias, and his duet “Amour, lance tes traits” (Love, loose your arrows) with Raphaelson was lovely and well balanced. The florid duet between Jacob Cooper as Comus, Bacchus’ son, and McIntosh was also a highlight of the performance, as both singers skillfully navigated the melismatic and virtuosic score.

The chorus, too, was excellent, illuminating the more contemporary sound in “La victoire voie à ta voix” (Victory answers your summons), charming text painting in “L’Amour suit cet objet charmant” (Love follows this charming being), and elegant phrasing in “Chantons dans nos fêtes charmantes” (In our charming festivals). The Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra played well throughout, with a good sensitivity to the difference between obbligato and continuo roles. The strings carried the orchestra, deftly switching between precisely articulated dotted rhythms and more lyrical and legato lines. The winds were not consistently reliable, but moments such as the flute duet with Erigone in “Dieux de Cythère” revealed skilled and sensitive players.

The final moments of the short opera featured a suite of dances, which, in addition to some of the interludes, showcased the musicality of the orchestra. The final tambourin, choreographed by Ken Pierce, was a delightful way to close the hour, and transform the rather modern setting of First Church Boston into an elegant Parisian théâtre of yesteryear.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Eliot Fisk (Jesse Weiner photo)

The month of June is host to multiple wonderful music festivals here in Boston. Recently, world-renowned guitarist Eliot Fisk discussed his brainchild and increasingly successful Boston Guitarfest, now in its sixth year, which runs from June 15-19. This year’s theme is “Bell’ Italia,” largely in celebration of master guitarist Oscar Ghiglia, with whom Fisk studied and who will be performing and giving several master classes. The festival’s concert programming is eclectic and engaging yet very much connected to the overall “Italian” theme. (The Guitarfest website has biographies of all of the performers named in this article)

Fisk’s vision for the festival — and for music in general — is one of cross-disciplinary dialogue. He views the guitar as a symbol of the interconnectedness of musical traditions. “It relates to everything!” he notes enthusiastically. “It is the most prominent folk instrument in the world, yet it has the oldest published tradition,… an ability to traverse the centuries. Almost every culture on earth has some sort of plucked instrument.” He also highlighted the cross-cultural coexistence of Islamic and Spanish elements in music, architecture, etc., and how they all manifest in the guitar as an instrument, as well as repertoire such as the danza mora, in which flamenco and Arabic influences intersect.

Fisk also strongly desires more local and “lateral” participation between organizations. He notes that the Guitarfest attracts many international participants but would like to see more active participation from local guitarists and their supporting institutions. While he regrets the isolationism of some arts organizations in Boston, he recognized the support he has received from several donors and local academic institutions, namely New England Conservatory and Northeastern University.

Most of the performers are, like Fisk, former students and disciples of Ghiglia. Concerts will feature a fascinating array of styles and repertoire, and not just for guitar. The first concert on Wednesday, June 15, features the 2010 Guitarfest Competition Winner Artyom Dervoed in the first half, and the second half will be devoted to Italian/Italianate Baroque harpsichord music (including Bach’s Italian Concerto) played by John Gibbons. Gibbons, who is on the faculty at NEC and directs the Bach Ensemble, will also be giving a seminar on Baroque performance practice the following day. In addition to Gibbons’s seminar, Dr. Hilary Poriss of Northeastern University will be delivering a lecture on Saturday on the direct relationship of Italian opera to guitar repertoire. The festival also includes a trip to the Museum of Fine Arts instrument collection and a visit to the North End to absorb Italian culture à la Boston.

On Thursday, June 16, the Newman-Oltman Duo (both former students of Ghiglia who run their own New York guitar festival in July) will perform works by Rossini, Leo Brouwer, and a world premiere of a work by Brazilian composer Arthur Kampela. On the same program, Fisk and electric guitar player Jude Gold will premiere a work written for this year’s festival by composer Anthony De Ritis, who, Fisk noted, has been a “wise, guiding force” for the festival since 2000.

Two concerts will be featured on Friday, June 17. At 4 pm, guitarist and Northeastern faculty member Robert Ward will play Liszt’s transcriptions of the Paganini Caprices (in turn transcribed for guitar by Fisk) as well as works by lesser-known modern composers Salvatore Sciarrino (b. 1947) and Franco Donatoni (1927-2000).

At 7:30 pm, Scott Borg and the Boston Guitar Orchestra will present a brief performance, immediately followed by the 8 pm concert. Borg, a native Australian who received his DMA from NEC, founded the BGO, a community-based amateur ensemble. In our interview, Fisk underscored the importance of aficionados and amateur music makers as a large and fundamental part of the audience for guitar music and feels “participatory audiences” are crucial to the survival of music performance.

The 8 pm concert begins with guitarist/lutenist Richard Savino and Ensemble El Mundo, which he co-directs, in a concert of Baroque music. The second half of the concert will feature guitarist Adam Holzman playing later Italian repertoire from the 19^th century, including works by composers Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829), Ferdinando Carulli (1770-1841) and Luigi Legnani (1790-1877).

Saturday night’s concert on June 18 presents Eliot Fisk, Zaira Meneses, members from A Far Cry string orchestra, and Ghiglia in a wide-ranging and exciting program from Vivaldi’s Double Concerto (originally for two mandolins and strings), to Luciano Berio’s Sequenza XI for solo guitar, a work written for and dedicated to Fisk.

Fisk hopes that the festival will generate a real “open-door feeling” here in Boston. He also wants to foster opportunities for young American musicians: “In a very materialistic society, if they don’t happen to hit a jackpot early in their career, they face a tough and important battle. … Rather than curse the darkness, I want to light a candle of widening concentric circles, starting with my own group of students struggling to make a living. … I’ve been mentoring them for 35 years. …The Guitarfest is a chance for [them] to learn the business side … there aren’t many jobs students have to graduate into entrepreneurship. I want to light a candle for my students in that way.

“Boston is a city with so much unrealized potential. I’m trying to do my bit …. what would be a real victory is to get many different people to collaborate for the common good.”

Fisk’s inspired vision is indeed one that should be shared by arts producers, administrators and consumers. Boston has no dearth of performing arts organizations, but the competitive model is hitting a brick wall, especially in these economic times. Collaboration is becoming increasingly more common, and when done well, can be mutually beneficial artistically and financially. Boston’s artistic riches are too bountiful to promote isolationism; one hopes for more events like Guitarfest that welcome a diverse audience and leap out of imposed cultural boxes.

The festival is designed to accommodate those who may only wish to participate in one day’s events or have other restrictions, financial or otherwise; for a full schedule and to purchase tickets, please see the Boston Guitarfest.

El Fuego features Sandoval (vilhuela, Baroque guitar, and voice), Teri Kowiak (voice and percussion) and Dan Meyers (recorders; percussion, and voice). For this particular performance, they were joined by guest performers James Dargan (voice and violin), Camila Parias (voice), and Zoe Weiss (viola da gamba). The ensemble opened with “Oy comamos y bebamos” (“Today we eat and drink”) by Juan del Encina (1469-1529). This was an excellent display of the ensemble’s strength as a whole, but also showcased the talents of Dan Meyers, whose excellent vocal characterization and muted percussion set the spirit for the rest of the concert. Camila Parias sang with strength and beautiful clarity, with a tone that was at once robust and gentle. Meyers, whose excellent work I’ve heard with Seven Times Salt, introduced the other two Encina works, “No quiero tener querer” (“I don’t want to love or be loved”) and “Cucu, Cucu.” Teri Kowiak sang with expression in “No quiero,” but at times seemed low for her range. In the last work of the set (“Cucu, Cucu”) Dan Meyers’s recorder playing was both elegant and joyful, but I found the refrain by the ensemble to be a bit sedate in spirit.

Mateo Flecha’s “Riu, riu, chiu,” a better known Christmas song, jumped in energy level, with excellent solos by Sandoval and Kowiak. James Dargan provided a profound solid bass sound for the ensemble singing but truly shone in his violin playing in Castellanos’ “Ausente de Alma.” Here Sandoval’s voice seem to truly come into its own, blending beautifully with Kowiak, whose voice seemed to glide effortlessly through the moving melodic passages.

The second Castellanos piece, “Oygan una xacarilla” (“Listen to…a xacarilla”) showcased absolutely beautiful florid vocal figurations from Sandoval and a lovely repartee between Dargan’s violin and Kowiak’s voice. The following work, “El Pícaro e cupido” by Sebastián Durón (1660-1716), had humorous energy and sophisticated characterization by the ensemble but suffered from some rougher moments of insecurity and a viola da gamba that needed retuning. Luckily, Weiss heard it too, and was quick to retune immediately at the conclusion of the song. José Marîn’s “Mi señora Mariantaños” maintained the playful and fun mood with a pantomime featuring Kowiak, Parias and Dargan. Here again, Parias’s voice brought a lovely richness that filled out the sound and complemented the lighter voices of Kowiak and Sandoval. The party was in full swing with Juan Gutierrez de Padilla’s “A la xacara xacarilla,” which featured the entire ensemble and a rhythmic vitality that expressed the text in every measure: “I bring my rhythmic song with style and flair as if a platter of the best, for the enjoyment of my fellow villains. A song so new and fun, that will make this Christmas a thousand times happier.” Indeed, there was no lack of joy or vibrancy to the music-making. The celebratory spirit of the final piece by Juan de Araujo (1646-1712), “Ay Andar a tocar a cantar a baylar” (Let’s go now to play, to sing, to dance…) reached the back of the sanctuary and seemed to celebrate the sunshine with its dance-like refrain.

My only general frustration with the ensemble is that they stood too far back. The pulpit in King’s Chapel does actually present an acoustic and visual obstacle, so the ensemble needed to move at least a few feet forward, especially given that each set was introduced by commentary. It was hard to hear the ends of phrases on Sandoval’s guitar and voice, and occasionally Kowiak’s lighter voice disappeared into the altar.

El Fuego is a group to watch here in Boston. A clear sense of programming and musical sensitivity are always critical to any ensemble, but so much more with early music that tends to stereotypically find itself labeled as having a “niche audience.” The talented members of this ensemble clearly inject a good dose of fun and joy into their music-making, reminding us that “artistry” and “entertainment” need not be isolated from one another.

Note: In the interest of full disclosure, the concert featured two former students of mine (in music history), which I did not know prior to sitting down at the concert. This possibility is always likely given how significantly our conservatories contribute new artists to the Boston musical scene.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Friday evening’s five-hour (and then some) New Music Marathon, may be one of the few times when Noam Chomsky and Kronos Quartet have graced the same stage, at the same time, as collaborators in the same performance. They were part of MIT’s Festival of Art + Science + Technology (FAST), an event on April 15 that brought together in MIT’s Kresge Auditorium the musical forces of Kronos, Bang on a Can All-Stars, virtuoso pipa player Wu Man, Gamelan Galak Tika, and the MIT Chamber Chorus.

Composer Evan Ziporyn, the MIT Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music, curated and emceed the evening’s festivities, in addition to performing as a member of both Gamelan Galak Tika and the Bang on a Can All-Stars. For the uninitiated, a “new music marathon” does allow one to come and go as they please (ideally during one of the four pauses/intermissions), which makes the audience as dynamic as the events taking place on stage. While the concert was reportedly sold out, there were empty seats throughout the evening, as each of the five “sets” attracted the curious, the suspicious, the enthusiastic, and, late in the evening, the Brian Eno fans.

The evening began with Kronos Quartet and Wu Man’s performance of three movements from Terry Riley’s The Cusp of Magic (2004).  The first movement, which shares the name of the work’s title, featured aggressive phrasing and electric figurations from the quartet, with bluesy inflections on the pipa (think Robert Johnson’s Crossroad). Wu Man, who is almost single-handedly responsible for the presence of the Chinese traditional instrument in Western new music concerts, played with amazing virtuosity and skill, clearly at home in what some might find a surprising context. “The Nursery” movement matched childlike whimsy (at one point Kronos first violinist David Harrington “played” on a toneless toy violin) with a lullaby sung by Wu Man. Harrington had a small arsenal of unorthodox percussion instruments at his disposal, and I found their implementation a distraction to the merits of the piece. The last selected movement, “Royal Wedding,” combined an almost Baroque theme from the cello with ornamentation and Italianate strumming from the pipa. Both Harrington and second violinist John Sherba played with dancelike gaiety, in a movement most enjoyable until its abrupt end that robbed it of potential shape.

World famous linguist/activist and MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky was both the honoree and “star” of  MIT Professor Tod Machover’s Chomsky Suite. A world premiere, Kronos’s Harrington explained, the work was “in progress” and that they would be “creating the kernel of the piece.” He offered hope that the piece would “lead us toward activism, thinking about the world we are a part of and making it better.” Noam Chomsky made his way up to the stage, clad in blue jeans and cable-knit sweater, and humbly took the seat recently vacated by Wu Man. A large video screen projected a real-time close-up of Chomsky, whose charming smiles and downcast eyes belied one of the sharpest minds and biting critics of our modern times. The work featured an interview of him, conducted by Harrington, interspersed and underscored by a quartet “arrangement” and adaptation of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1, BWV 1007. Chomsky’s anecdotes referenced his own brief experience as a guitarist for a pick-up band and his experience watching Casals play the cello suites in Prague in the 1950s. It was the discussion of Casals’s refusal to play in Fascist countries that brought us the first glimmer of “lead[ing] us toward activism,” but the conversation eventually turned toward the sublimity of music and how it helps us to “aim for something higher than that which we do regularly, expertly…”.

BMInt reviewer Mary Wallace Davidson, who was also in attendance, mapped the following scheme in regard to the relationship between the strings and Chomsky: “In the first movement, the strings gradually overcame Chomsky’s voice, or at least became an equal partner sonically. The second movement was strings only, long, dour, homophonic phrases at first, then a livelier contrapuntal texture. In the third movement they were definitely subservient to Chomsky’s musings, playing only brief, sighing phrases sotto voce. The fourth movement was simply a short postlude by the strings.” Machover’s treatment of the Bach Courante was engaging, with the melody broken up among the four instruments of the quartet. My sense overall, however, was that we were watching a documentary in the making (one that should be made, in my opinion), but I wanted more of an interpolation of the elements — an interweaving of Chomsky and Bach in a contrapuntal expression of genius.

SuperCollider (2010) by Christine Southworth featured Gamelan Elektrika (an electronic gamelan by Gamelan Galak Tika) utilizing instruments fitted with sensors and electronic components that facilitate alterations of tuning and timbre via sound processing at the computer (done by the composer). The work’s title refers to the famous Large Hadron Collider at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). The website for Southworth’s piece explains: “The behavior of subatomic particles is probabilistic, group-oriented: the motion of any one particle is unpredictable and unknowable: it’s what the group does that counts. This could also be a description of the Balinese gamelan, where individual virtuosity is subsumed to interlocking patterns, composite melodies, the sound of the whole. This is also the spirit of Kronos.” It is indeed a sense of collective energy that seems to radiate from the stage. Kronos Quartet members, who began the piece standing at the four gongs of the gamelan, seemed a natural extension of the instrument, powered by the intense and intricate rhythms of the entire ensemble. The work is a visual and aural spectacle that, despite its computerized elements and futuristic inclination, maintains an organic sense of collective virtuosity. Led by Evan Ziporyn on the kendang, the entire ensemble enthusiastically joined tradition and modernity without artifice or self-congratulation.

The audience was treated to the more traditional Balinese gamelan (sans MIDI) after intermission, as Wu Man also returned to the stage.  She opened with a 1960 work for solo pipa by Chinese composer Wang Huiran (b. 1936), Dance of Yi People. This piece is famous for its exploitation of the versatile sounds of the pipa, which can evoke a wide range of sounds from sitars to hammered dulcimers. Wu Man played with the rockstar energy of Hendrix, but always with a refined and congenial composure that placed her instrument front and center. After this lovely moment to wallow in the solo strains of the pipa, she joined Gamelan Galak Tika for a performance of Ziporyn’s 2004 work, Aradhana.  Much in the same way that the Kronos Quartet had become an extended arm of Gamelan Elektrika, here Wu Man’s pipa is both an integral component and gentle adversary of the gamelan. The steady patterns of both soloist and gamelan tug and pull at each other in multiple rhythmic dances, while bowing techniques in the gamelan created an ethereal backdrop for the plucked pipa and the hammered instruments. The work is hypnotic but not mind-numbingly so, instead inviting the listener to join the dance, stepping in and out of any number of possible aural interpretations.

Bang on a Can, the 1980s brainchild of composers Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, and David Lang, has successfully married popular music and classical compositional technique. The first work played by the Bang On A Can All-Stars was David Lang’s Sun Ray (2006). The composer was present and offered a few words about the work, wherein he explained inspirations as disparate as a laundromat in North Adams to Masonic obelisks.  Regardless of personal preferences toward what some call “post-minimalist” music, the individual talents of the five members, which includes Evan Ziporyn on clarinets and saxophone, is indisputable. While each player demonstrated mastery and technique, Lang’s piece also highlighted their amazingly tight work as an ensemble, particularly with its emphatic rhythmic punctuation. The sparkling texture of the opening section carried with it echoes of the gamelan, and Ashley Bathgate’s cello playing was a visual and aural treasure — as it continued to be for the remainder of the evening (with over two hours to go).

It was Michael Gordon’s for Madeline (2009) that I found most remarkable of the entire set. In this piece the vibraphone, played by the immensely talented percussionist Ian Ding, and the piano, mastered by Vicky Chow, engage in an almost unceasing rhythmic interplay that is mind-blowing for the stamina and exactitude it demands from the performers. This intense rhythmic ostinato is offset by sliding gestures in the guitar and cello. Gordon’s real feat here is that the slides become the destination itself, rather than a means toward a single-pitch end. The work’s not-so-hidden tunefulness and timbral dexterity made it a highlight of the evening.

Julia Wolfe’s Big Beautiful Dark & Scary (2002) is a case where, as Evan Ziporyn noted, the title speaks for itself. While the work showcased the tremendous talents of the ensemble, particularly Ian Ding’s double-duty on vibraphone and hi-hat /ride cymbals, I felt it over-amplified the “big” and “scary” elements a bit too much. Waves of musical energy that put Rimsky-Korsakov’s ubiquitous Flight of the Bumble Bee to shame, grew loudly and boldly, but without any sense of destination. While the work seemed to be an audience favorite, I found myself relieved by the sustained resonance of the piano at the very end.

The set closed with British composer Steve Martland’s Horses of Instruction from 1995  — an “oldie” in relation to the other pieces. As I watched Ian Ding towel off from the Wolfe work, I was very taken by this ensemble’s astonishing endurance. Most of the music is based on ferociously rhythmic ostinati (often supplied unceasingly by Vicki Chow on the piano), and yet each player performed without a hint of exhaustion.  Ashley Bathgate played this particular work with the joie de vivre of a Haydn concerto and artfully coaxed a wide variety of timbres from her black cello. The piece featured expressive and virtuosic counterpoint between the piano and electric bass (played by Robert Black), and managed to be both jazzy and dramatic. As with much of this repertoire, I felt the work’s length seemed somewhat gratuitous, but there was enough intricacy in the individual components that I arrived at the end without resentment.

I wish I could say the same of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports. The work, originally written in 1978 as an electronic piece, was, as Evan Ziporyn told the audience, never meant as a concert piece, but instead what Eno calls “ambient music.” While the 1998 arrangement by Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe. and Ziporyn gives the piece a very different kind of life, I am in the seeming minority who fails to understand the popularity of this work. As a grand finale, the piece featured all the previous performers except the Gamelan, and the MIT Chamber Chorus sang in the second and third movements. My friend and colleague commented that the work was a reminder that “not everything in life has to be efficient,” but I felt the piece replaced efficiency with somnolence. Eno conceived this “ambient music” to counteract the angry and irritated hustle-and-bustle of airports (and by extension, our time). The slowly unfolding diatonic sonorities initially offered a soothing contrast to the frenetic energy of the Bang On A Can All-Stars set.  The MIT Chamber Chorus performed admirably, offering focused and seamless vocalizations interwoven with the texture. The high point of the piece for me came in the fourth movement with a duet between clarinet and pipa. It was clear that there were many people in the audience that had arrived at the marathon just for this work, and had it not been for the very late hour, I would have stayed to ask them why. Peppered among the many Eno enthusiasts were several sleeping attendees (evidently one man anticipated the event and brought a pillow). I enjoyed the opportunity to explore the sonic saturation of the chords and admired the attentiveness of the players to parts that are probably more rewarding than they might seem, but at some point the work became rather tedious in its self-involvement. I’m ready for the onslaught of nay-sayers, but I stand by my opinion here. Those who were in attendance and offered the standing ovation will no doubt disagree with me. The Eno fans were rewarded with two Eno encores including the popular Burning Airports Gives You So Much More and Everything Merges with the Night.

The sound engineers and the production team deserve a hearty round of applause for their work on this undoubtedly complicated and challenging endeavor. With the exception of some miking issues, the sound production was excellent. It may seem ridiculous, given what I’ve just described in the previous paragraphs, to say I hoped for more variety, but there was a heavy representation of minimalist and postminimalist styles. What I do think is crucially important in the work of these ensembles, is this sense that the world is indeed a musical oyster.  These composers and performers gracefully leap over limitations and boundaries imposed by pedantic musical taxonomy, gathering threads of multicultural influence and experience to keep new music fresh, alive, and engaging.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

When attending a Blue Heron concert, you must arrive early—not only because the house is likely to be packed, but to spend some time with director Scott Metcalfe’s program notes. I take the time to comment on these only because they are astonishingly fresh in style and beautifully researched. Rather than a pedantic listener’s guide, Metcalfe’s notes are steeped in history and draw connections between the works on the program, illuminating the fantastic concept behind each of Blue Heron’s concerts. I also attended the pre-concert talk delivered by Prof. Michael Noone of Boston College, who debunked a few inaccuracies and assumptions that have plagued Victoria’s biography and amplified Metcalfe’s scholarly and engaging program annotations.

And then there was the music.

It is a testament to the ensemble’s enormous gifts that the plainchant portions were so exquisitely sung in  a concert otherwise filled with some of the most elegant and rich polyphony ever written. From the metric Iberian plainsong in Guerrero’s Lauda mater ecclesia to the freer speech-driven chant in Victoria’s setting of the same text, the unison chant was all at once delicate and expressive, with nuances seldom heard in performances by other early music ensembles. I can only hope that Blue Heron releases a plainchant recording sometime in the near future.

Scott Metcalfe’s style, both his persona and his conducting, serves Blue Heron well, as he eliminates pretension from the music and the performance while at the same time setting very high standards of professionalism. There is a sense of pure joy that rises out of the music-making and wraps itself around the audience. There was also no sense of waiting for the “big number” (the Victoria Requiem), so that each piece received the same level of care and attention.  Because of this conscientious approach, the five-voice Ave virgo sanctissima by Guerrero stood out as one of many magical moments of the evening. With a quotation of the Salve Regina chant quietly tucked into the texture (a chant which subtly tied together several of the works on the program), the work had almost modern harmonic flair and displayed tremendous sensitivity to the text.  Guerrero, unlike Victoria, wrote secular songs in addition to a large corpus of sacred music, and there was an emotional momentum to the motet that seemed unfettered by liturgical constraint or consideration. The voice of Jason McStoots shone in this piece, with expressive energy and crafted brilliance

At no time was there any soloistic grandstanding by any of the outstanding performers, but there were several voices that deserve special mention. Paul Guttry’s sonorous bass lines not only anchored the polyphony (sometimes with the added treat of Daniel Stillman on the dulcian), but lent a velvety texture to both the full ensemble and small group singing. Zachary Wilder’s altus lines soared effortlessly in and out of the stratosphere, particularly in Victoria’s Magnificat. Daniela Tošic and Pamela Dellal’s voices provided consistent color and richness of tone as well. In Victoria’s Salve Regina for eight voices, Shari Wilson’s cantus streamlined the polyphony that blossomed out of the chant incipit. In the same piece, the plaintive invocation (“Eia ergo, advocata nostra/illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte”) of the eight-voice ensemble was truly one of the most poignant moments of the evening. But there were more to come.

The Magnificat sexti toni (for 12 voices) was a polychoral wonder in its variety of texture, even within each of the three “choirs.” The stirring antiphonal excitement of the outer choirs at the “Fecit potentiam in brachio suo” highlighted the famous textual evocation of God’s strength. Metcalfe brought new life to the doxology, ending the work with an “in secula seculorum” that one hoped might resonate without end.

It was, however, Victoria’s Officium Defunctorum that was the concert’s main event. There was the tiniest sense of fatigue in some of the tenor entrances and in the Offertorium, but the performance as a whole was intensely soulful. The cadences were impeccable — Metcalfe never held them past the point of exacting beauty. The ensemble brought out every possible expressive phrase of the text, from a pleading “exaudi” to a caressed “et lux perpetua.” When the “Requiem aeternam” text returned in the Gradual, the sonorities were perfect and unrushed, indeed shining with perpetual light. The shimmering textures of the Introit and Gradual were beautifully contrasted by the luxurious density of the motet “Versa est in luctum.”

Blue Heron performed the entire work with breathtaking passion, but it was the final phrase of the “Kyrie eleison” that seemed to stop time. The emotional impact of this final goodbye seemed to touch Metcalfe as well, who was visibly moved when he released the blissful silence and turned to face the standing audience. In his notes, Metcalfe remarked upon Victoria’s colleague who praised the work as “the lament of Orpheus for Eurydice.” Metcalfe claimed, “It is very much worth wondering how the piece might work such wonders, but I don’t think I can offer any convincing answers.”  That’s where he’s wrong.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

The brevity of Sulpitia Cesis’ biography is not uncommon for women who wrote music behind the cloister wall. Her story prior to entering the convent of San Geminiano (San Gimignano) in 1593 is not an uncommon one. Born to a noble family, Sulpitia became a bride of Christ, the only likely alternative to becoming a bride to an earthly suitor at the time. Further, San Geminiano was known for its musical activities and was an ideal place to host a lutenist-composer-nun.

Cappella Clausura’s website touted Sulpitia Cesis as “the female Gabrieli,” yet director Amelia LeClair noted in the program that the motets are “lovely Renaissance works despite being written in the early Baroque.” Cesis’s works tend to evoke both Palestrina and Gabrieli in a single piece. It was the motets on the program that leaned toward the former that were the most successful, primarily due to the acoustical limitations of First Lutheran, the performance I attended. The church does not easily accommodate cori spezzati singing.

The opening “Stabat mater dolorosa” was ethereal and glorious, with LeClair’s choice to omit the bass line in the opening phrase an effective incipit to the entrance of the other singers. This is definitely one of the works that sat most squarely in the Renaissance, and the light sound of the sopranos allowed the harmonic resonances to shine. The ensemble (and LeClair), sensitive to the text, effectively highlighted the text’s “crucifixi fige plagas” with forte declamation. This section of text would have likely been very meaningful for the nuns at San Geminiano, as the hymn had a long history of penitential devotion, and its overall maternal imagery no doubt would have moved many of the singers.

The first poly-choral performance on the program, “Hic est beatissimus Apostolus,” was weakened by the space and a lack of balance between choir and organ. In stark contrast to the preceding “Stabat mater,” the sopranos seemed to carry a certain vocal tightness that on occasion drove the pitch slightly flat, perhaps due to pushing against the volume of the instruments. A later Gabrieli-esque piece on the program, “Dulce nomen Jesu Christe,” which was performed solely by the Cappella Clausura singers, did not suffer from these issues and conveyed a magnificent balance of piety and musical energy. The “Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel” featured the strongest group of soloists that evening, with an absolutely stunning tutti moment on “Benedictum” and very tight cadences beautifully articulated by LeClair’s precise direction.

Sometimes Cesis seemed to struggle between her Renaissance and Baroque tendencies, leaving it up to the performers to negotiate awkward transitions between sections of the text. This was the case with the “Cantemus Domino,” though LeClair and the ensemble artfully smoothed over them.

Some of the more polyphonically interesting works on the programs were the motets that bore more resemblance in texture and text to madrigals. In “Il mio più vago Sole, morto” (My loveliest Sun is dead), Singers Gail Abbey, Christina Calamaio, and Adriana Repetto conveyed the metaphorical text with a lightness of texture, allowing Cesis’ more active writing to surface. Of special mention was the sotto voce work of the two guest trombonists, William Mack Ramsey and Thomas Zajac, whose playing took on a sublime vocal quality almost inseparable from that of the singers — although they played almost flawlessly for the entire program. One of the other Italian pieces, “Peccò Signor quest’alma” (O Lord, this soul has sinned), featured extremely sensitive playing from the continuo/instrumentalist members of Cappella Clausura, Hendrik Broekman on the organ, Mai-Lan Brokeman on violone, and Catherine Liddell on theorbo. These performers also brought exciting drama to the invocation of the cross in the antiphon “O crux splendidor.”

Certainly one of the most moving Scriptural images, and one aptly conveyed by Cesis’s score, is the famous text from Matthew depicting the two Marys at the tomb of Christ. This “Maria Magdalena et altera Maria” featured the considerable vocal talents of Roberta Andersen and Gail Abbey in a sensitive, well-balanced duet. It was particularly well programmed contrast to the “Sub Tuum Praesidium” that followed, which interspersed rhythmically active sections with achingly beautiful moments of Renaissance polyphony embodying Marian clemency. The diction in this particular piece was very well executed, unlike some of the other works, particularly “Ecce Ego” where the high tessitura of the top line detracted from the text being conveyed in the lower voices.

This was challenging repertoire to sing in the acoustical confinement of First Lutheran; it provided a beautiful chamber for the pieces featuring six to eight singers but seemed only to muddy the waters of the more involved polyphonic repertoire. While the general balance between singers, instruments, and divided choruses was quite good, there were some issues of stridency in one or two soprano voices that probably could have been mediated by a reduction in volume. Both Cappella Clausura and the Concord Womens Chorus boast some beautiful lower voices, and I felt these were sometimes unduly obscured by the volume of the upper voices. That said, the cadences of each phrase and each piece were nothing short of exquisite. There were many divine moments of perfect sonority that resonated even without acoustical help from the church. The ensemble as a whole brought elegance, grace, and pathos to a repertoire that will hopefully continue to reach far beyond the cloistered walls of canonized music history.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Billings engraving by Paul Revere

It was heartening to see a goodly number of attendees at the choral concert at King’s Chapel on January 23, a very frosty Sunday evening. Nestled in the box pews, the audience came for the unique combination of history and modernity that the program promised and were not disappointed. Entitled “Our History, Our Future,” in celebration of the 325th anniversary of King’s Chapel, the concert embodied “history” through a cappella works by composers who have graced the church’s (and more widely, Boston’s) musical history: William Billings (1746-1800), John Wheeler Tufts (1825- 1908), and Daniel Pinkham (1923-2006). Representing the “future” were four world premieres by composers James Woodman, David Carney, Carson Cooman, and Heinrich Christensen, King’s Chapel’s organist and music director. Interspersed with historical narratives read by the Rev. Mr. Joseph Bassett, who is currently engaged in compiling materials for the next volume of The Annals of King’s Chapel, the music seamlessly wove in and out of the centuries, tying together rich traditions of Anglican psalmody with modern trends in choral composition and standard service music.

The King’s Chapel choir and soloists offered some of the best diction I’ve had the pleasure of hearing in any choral concert, so much so that I barely glanced at the texts included in the program. Particularly in a work like Tufts’ I look to Thee in Every Need, which carried the characteristic warmth of 19th-century hymnody but not a lot of musical intricacy, the beautifully articulated texts brought forth a level of expression that would be easy to take for granted. The crisp final consonants in Billings’ Independence maintained the dancing and lively spirit of the work, which suffered only in that not all the voices in each individual section shared the same expressive idea. The opening work on the program, William Billings’ Wake Ev’ry Breath, utilized the wonderful space that is King’s Chapel, with soloists placed in the balconies for the initial canonic entrances and then finally processing downstairs to come together as an ensemble in front of the sanctuary. It is the music for this piece that adorns the cover of Billings’ most famous collection, The New England Psalm Singer, with an engraving by Paul Revere. Beginning the concert with Billings Wake Ev’ry Breath and Independence recognized Boston’s rich musical history and the history of King’s Chapel, where Billings taught his singing schools. (He is buried in Central Graveyard that lies at the edge of Boston Common near Boylston Street.)

Christensen’s new work, Lord of the Worlds Below, offered a stylistic timeline across the five verses of text by the Rev. James Freeman (1810-1888), who officially converted the congregation to Unitarianism and revised the Book of Common Prayer. It always gives me pause when I see a composer represent his own music as “in the style of,” but in this case it was apt, as Christensen very intentionally encapsulated musical history, providing a microcosmic representation of the concert as a whole. The first verse was certainly in the style of Billings, followed by a more high Classical rendering of the second stanza, and then a third stanza which very easily could have been by Brahms, as Christensen states in his program notes. It was the final two verses, however, that I found most stunning in both the scoring and the performance. Christensen chose not to obfuscate the hymn tune (Darwall’s 148th) in Freeman’s “autumn” verse, carried admirably by the tenors with gorgeous tone, and even what the composer described as “bone-crunching icy dissonances” in the final “winter” verse never led the music away from the beauty of the text.

David Carney characterized his The Covenant of King’s Chapel as something “much closer to a piece of service music.” As with the Billings pieces, the chorus brought the same excellent rhythmic articulation to the music, and this “service music” had a rightful place in this particular concert.

In keeping with the historical revue, the three works by Daniel Pinkham (music director at King’s Chapel for over four decades) spanned the range of his tenure there. Most impressive was the 1970 In the Beginning of Creation; it is not strictly a cappella, as it is scored for chorus and a tape created by Pinkham featuring an assortment of sounds from a Buchla synthesizer. The opening recalled a “chaos” tradition, if one can claim such a thing, seen in works as disparate as Jean-Féry Rebel’s Les Élémens (1737) and Haydn’s Die Schöpfung (1798), but in the language of 1970s tape music. The choir handled the ad libitum sections — or what I assume were ad libitum without benefit of the score — easily, producing stunning glissandi and highlighting Pinkham’s well-crafted word painting.

The final work on the program, the premiere of Carson Cooman’s O Lord, I Will Sing of Your Love Forever sojourns through Scriptural texts, specifically Zechariah, Luke, Matthew and John, and is book-ended with texts from Psalm 89 and Psalm 103. The final ‘Alleluia’ recalled the gentle peace of Randall Thompson’s famous work, with quiet imitative entrances building toward a climactic exuberance but ending ultimately with humility and reverence. Christensen’s exacting direction gave life to the texts set so sensitively by Cooman. Some of the soprano voices were extended beyond a comfortable range, abetted no doubt by fatigue at the end of a challenging concert. What never faltered was the energy of the choir’s delivery and the unified attention to detail whether in a chorale, fugato, or the percussive whispers in the Pinkham.

At the end of the concert, the choir had a surprise for their esteemed director. Ushering Christensen to a chair in the middle of the aisle, the choir performed a work entitled Pipers by Graham Ramsay, who conducted the ensemble. The work, which featured Vanessa Holroyd on flute and piccolo, set an intriguing text by Alice Weaver Flaherty that honors the power of a “Kapellmeister” whose music, like that of the Pied Piper, “chases the vermin from our heads” and “whose songs entice us to sing as one.” This was a different choir in some respects than that which we heard during the formal program. Clearly injected with the enthusiasm of homage to their director, the choir fully embraced the text, “Music takes us out of our small boxes. Music brings us to a greater place.” Indeed, the choir leapt from the refined elegance of much of New England’s cultivated sacred music, into very visceral jubilation and gratitude to be able to lift every voice and sing.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Zander set the figurative stage for the symphony during his pre-concert lecture that was its own tour-de-force. The lecture/performance drew a motley crowd into Jordan Hall — devotees of the work ( a passionate group), students, regular subscribers, and, much to this reviewer’s delight, children. For the better part of an hour, Zander preached the Bruckner Gospel — and you wanted to listen. Drawing connections between Beethovenian themes and Mahlerian gestures, Maestro Zander broke down the monumental work into digestible parts, without ever resorting to pedantry or musicological minutiae. “Mahler,” Zander said, “has told us how to get here… Bruckner tells us how to deal with it.” He didn’t just talk about the work, however. He defined where he fit in the greater picture of the performance: “My job is to control the tempi” — a rather humble statement to describe a task that, with this symphony, is a daunting proposition.

And control it he did. In the moments where the tempo was most likely to run away in response to the exuberance of the piece, Zander’s gestures were close to the body, exacting, and highly focused, saving the sweeping and emotive gestures for melodic expression. In the first movement, the almost imperceptible tremolo underscoring in the strings was magical; I had to focus my eyes on the players’ hands to see that they were indeed moving. The orchestra seamlessly navigated in and out of the fortissimos and subito pianos, held tightly, but not restrictively, by Zander’s reins.

The Scherzo opened with the energy of a finale, and the rhythmic articulation lent something to the movement I can only hesitantly describe as “funk” in the best sense of the word. This was rhythm one feels in the bones and in the gut, viscerally connecting to the music. The duet between horn and harp offered a beautiful chamber music moment in amongst the tapestry of Mahlerian and Wagnerian textures. The winds, unfortunately, were often overshadowed by the brass and the strings, but this is more a consequence of Bruckner’s scoring than any fault of the players. In this symphony the winds seem almost an afterthought, offering timbral commentary on the wash of sound in the strings. The sound of the low strings, in particular, had a haunting and gorgeous hollowed-out quality to it, which seemed to reach across the orchestra to dance with the Wagner tubas and the horns.

Watching the cellos in the Adagio was like watching a beautifully choreographed ballet, but wherein each step created a perfectly synchronized melodic phrase. Zander approached the movement with solemnity, as the composer asked, but kept up the tempo, fulfilling the thematic destiny of the movement, which can easily be sullied by any sense of drag in the beat. It is the third movement upon which the success of the symphony rests, making one forget about the lack of intermission, and worrying little about what comes afterward.

Not that there was much question, but the finale proved that this orchestra knows the power of a theme, particularly in the case of Bruckner’s writing, jam-packed as it is with compositional legacy. If there was any moment where I heard fatigue, it was right toward the end of the finale where the violins seemed to sacrifice just a tad of their rhythmic vigor. This minor issue was easily supplanted, however, by the orchestra’s ability to play Bruckner’s crescendi as they were intended; they refuse to take you where you want to go when you want to go there, and instead ask you to hang on for the ride. In his pre-concert lecture, Zander referred to William Carragan, contributing editor for the Anton Bruckner Collected Edition, whose notes call attention to Bruckner’s tempo marking for first theme of the finale: 69 beats per minute. The music did indeed gallop, sinewy and muscular, never losing energy but instead proudly bringing a Herculean performance to a close.

And now I must make a full confession — this is a not a piece I have adored in the past or that I have gone out of my way to hear. Perhaps it is my inability to listen to the final movement without hearing Wotan sing “Loge, hör!” and glimmers of the Siegfried motive. (Kindly address all hate mail to me personally, not the editor.) But for all its ever-so-slightly derivative moments, Zander and the Boston Philharmonic peeled back layers that I have hitherto ignored and moved me out of that sense of reluctant and forced appreciation toward a more genuine understanding. Should the Boston Philharmonic perform more works toward which I feel cynically inclined, I will eagerly go for the opportunity to be converted by compelling artistry and passionate devotion to music-making.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

While we are enjoying the delight of so much science and melody, and eagerly anticipating its continuance, on a sudden, like the fleeting pleasures of life, or the spirited young adventurer, who would fly from ease and comfort at home to the inhospitable shores of New Zealand or Lake Ontario, we are snatched away from such eloquent music, to crude, wild and extraneous harmonies…

This review of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony appeared in 1825, the year after the symphony was completed, in the London Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review; the review is also discussed in Nicolas Slonimsky’s Lexicon of Musical Invective.

While we might chuckle at the historic evaluation of a Beethovenian masterpiece as “crude,” there is certainly no question that the reviewer is engaging in the act of music criticism. The critique is an expression of his opinion — in the above example we learn, in addition to Beethoven’s Ninth, the writer is also not disposed toward the shores of New Zealand.

All this is my opening salvo to, what I hope, is a springboard for further discussion and dialogue surrounding the Donald Rosenberg case. Here is a quick snapshot of the particulars, which have been covered extensively elsewhere: In September 2008, music critic Donald Rosenberg of the Cleveland Plain Dealer was asked to step down from his position as primary staff music reviewer but was kept on staff as a general arts reviewer. This decision, according to Rosenberg, came about as the result of pressure from the Cleveland Orchestra to demote him for overwhelmingly negative” reviews of the orchestra and its artistic director, Franz Welser-Möst. Rosenberg filed a formal suit alleging age discrimination against the Plain Dealer and its editor, Susan Goldberg, and of interference and defamation against the Musical Arts Association, the governing organization of the Cleveland Orchestra.

This past Friday, the jury dismissed all of Mr. Rosenberg’s claims for lack of evidence to support age discrimination or an infringement of contract. The case has set off a firestorm of commentary in the major newspapers throughout the United States and the blogosphere. In an engaging and all-too-brief TweetChat recently, Peter Friedman (law professor at Case Western Reserve) commented on the frivolity of the lawsuit from a legal standpoint.³ The chat, conducted on the social networking site Twitter, formally featured Friedman, Tim Smith (classical music critic at the Baltimore Sun), and Janice Harayda (novelist and editor of the blog, One-Minute Book Reviews). Several other “tweeps,” including this writer, also chimed in. The discussion can be tracked on Twitter using the hashtag #DonR.

The ramifications of this (and other similar cases) are frightening in an age where arts criticism is being cut from publications at an alarming rate. While Mr. Rosenberg was found not to have legal grounds to file suit against the Cleveland Orchestra and Plain Dealer, I do think the larger issue bears examination by anyone interested in arts criticism, either from the reader’s perspective, the writer’s perspective, or that of a performing organization. Mr. Rosenberg does indeed have the “right” to criticize Maestro Franz Welser-Möst’s conducting. The Cleveland Orchestra also has the “right” not to like it. No one questions the “right” to have opinions, or at least, I hope not. But what happens when your occupation is defined by your ability to give your opinion?

Let’s remove the sense of “art” from criticism and look at it as a bare-bones employment issue. We pay critics to do the “job” of musical criticism, but evidently that occupation is heavily defined by parameters lying well outside what musical criticism should be. Is the measure of a good critic his or her ability to provide criticism, or is it the positive/negative qualities of that criticism?  If the former, it really isn’t clear why Rosenberg was “re-assigned”/”demoted.” Is the success of a critic based solely on giving good reviews? “Of course not” is the obvious answer.

Certainly, if a critic seems to have an axe to grind with a specific performer or organization, it might then be best to divide the criticism responsibilities, as Tim Smith suggested in the TweetChat: “I hate to second-guess an editor, but SG [Susan Goldberg] could have gone all Solomon and divvied up Franz reviews between Don and Zack [Lewis].” Barry Johnson offered another suggestion: “You could even [arrange] live encounters (Ali v. Frazier) and [employ] recordings of various versions of the music,” implying that even negative criticism can provide an opportunity to enlarge engagement with the arts.

One point that did not get addressed in the chat was the fact that the publisher of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer sits on the Board of the Cleveland Orchestra. This brings us to the next wrinkle: conflict of interest. Most of us in the Boston music scene (and elsewhere) are “connected” to multiple organizations, mine being two conservatories, a chorus, and a handful of others in a less direct way. I am sensitive to the conflict-of-interest issue, and I decline opportunities to review certain concerts because of it. However, the Boston-Musical Intelligencer, for which I write, and which has received initial support from the Harvard Musical Association, is ostensibly far more “connected” to myriad music organizations in the greater Boston area. I would venture less than six degrees of separation between most of the large organizations and our editor Robert Levin, publisher Lee Eiseman, and executive editor Bettina A. Norton. Does this mean we should avoid negative reviews of these organizations? Should we not review them at all? The Intelligencer’s goal, as stated on the website, is “to review as many [concerts] as possible, especially those deemed most important and unjustly neglected by our editors. Our reviewers are to be drawn from Boston’s most distinguished musicians and musical academics under the leadership of Robert Levin.” As with most journalistic publications, the editors make the decisions about what should be covered— no surprises there. That is the right of the publication. But does a publication or organization have the right to control the nature of the reviews? While the reviewers at the Intelligencer are not paid per se, we do receive free tickets to the events we cover (as is standard practice). This, however, as I’m sure most arts organizations would agree, is not a guarantee of a positive review, as that would constitute paid-for promotional advertising rather than genuine music criticism.

And what of validating one’s opinions? Don Rosenberg was not alone in his dislike of Franz Welser-Möst’s musical leadership. Two letters to the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer supported Rosenberg’s general assessment of Welser-Möst; one claimed “When he conducts, the performances are below dull and boring on the classical music scale of excellence” and the other, “[Welser-Möst] gave Debussy’s “Iberia” an uninteresting, perfunctory, metronomic performance. He’s out of synch when conducting the music of Debussy and Ravel.”⁴ Rosenberg’s criticism, to be sure, was unflinching in its dislike of Welser-Möst’s “non-interventionist” approach in a review of a 2007 performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony: “When [Welser-Möst] wasn’t pressing the orchestra toward ear-shattering harshness, [he] dropped dynamics to a whisper that sapped the music of all character. Even the serenity of the second movement was compromised as the ensemble toiled to maintain rhythmic unity. The third-movement Scherzo held no terror, and it was treated so rigidly that the marvelous trumpets had little space to sing.”⁵ I fail to see unsubstantiated invective in this particular review, although I do admit I am not a regular reader of Mr. Rosenberg’s work. It does lack any sugar-coating, that is for certain, but Rosenberg has also made sure to make his own expectations clear: “serenity” in the second movement and “terror” in the third.

Listening to music is such an extraordinary endeavor precisely because it can be such a contrasting experience for two different listeners. Music criticism, whether it is an art or a task, is not objective. If that were the case, the world would only need one über-critic to meet all our needs, and that would be that. A good review isn’t one with which you necessarily agree, but one that presents both an opinion and the subjective background for that opinion. In the case of a professional music critic, the critic’s credentials testify to their own subjective background as well as their qualifications for the job. But the critic cannot give voice to the same sorts of artistic evaluation that so freely flows in letters to the editors, blog posts and comments, if he/she is going to be subject to “re-assignment” (or worse) over negative reviews. That is, in effect, impeding the ability of the critic to do his/her job.

So, we must decide for ourselves, and as a supposedly “cultured” society, whether or not arts criticism is a valuable endeavor and component of the arts. The over-arching problem of politicization of the arts is a topic too large for this article, but I am aware that it lurks in the background, threatening to squash all my ideological naiveté. If, as I wrote in the TweetChat, all we expect are “pandering, fluffy reviews,” then I think we are headed to a sorry place in our cultural history, where music performance and appreciation thereof will become the work of automatons whose ears receive musical input that is merely thrust back out, bypassing the heart and soul completely.

Author’s Note: for further reading, consult the following:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/arts/music/07critic.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Friedman blog: http://blogs.geniocity.com/friedman/tag/donald-rosenberg/

Letters by William Farragher and Roger Gilruth at http://blog.cleveland.com/letters/2007/11/rosenberg_is_right_about_cleve.html

Donald Rosenberg’s “Review of Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall,” October 11, 2007. (Posted 12 October 2007). http://blog.cleveland.com/reviews/2007/10/cleveland_orchestra_welsermost.html

Ed. Note: An earlier version of this article appears on Rebecca Marchand’s personal blog, Musically Miscellaneous Mayhem

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculties of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

The Mozart Duo for Violin and Viola featured the immense talents of Sunghae Anna Lim on violin and Jonathan Vinocour on viola. It was a pleasure both to listen to and watch these two very passionate performers as they matched each other’s intensity note for note. Vinocour, who is principal violist of the San Francisco Symphony, had incredible contrapuntal sensitivity, and Lim’s thematic articulation was both expressive and precise. The Adagio is a challenge as it calls for individual expressivity without corrupting the tempo or sense of ensemble between the two players. While Vinocour used more eye contact, and Lim clearly relied upon her ear, it worked beautifully. In the final Rondeau, the viola must fight against the aural predominance of the violin’s higher range, and both performers seemed conscious of this, keeping the texture light while unveiling the true “viola moments.” In the phenomenal closing arpeggiations of the viola against the violin, Lim and Vinocour worked as would the left hand and right hand of a piano, creating the sense of absolute psychic connection between them.

Directly before the performance of her 2004 work Happy Rain on a Spring Night, composer Chen Yi spoke with the evening’s emcee, Suzanne Nance, radio host and Music Director for the Maine Public Broadcasting Network. The composer offered some intriguing discussion of the work, revealing her use of Fibonacci procedures and the influence of the sounds of the poem’s original Mandarin translated to five instruments: flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano. Chen Yi, who was asked to speak both prior the concert and before the performance of her piece, managed to provide fresh commentary in both instances. I remark on this only because there was much redundancy within the program notes, Elliott Schwartz’s pre-concert lecture, and Suzanne Nance’s introductory segments (particularly in regard to Mozart’s work). While I’m very much in favor of catering these types of commentary to a generalized audience, the excess repetition had the overall impact of dumbing down the evening. This could be easily remedied by collaboration between annotator, lecturer, and emcee, or a consolidation of these elements.

But if the concert’s textual and narrative aspects were often redundant, the music was anything but. Chen Yi’s music was illuminated by the amazing control and technique of violinist Jennifer Elowitch, one of the festival’s two Artistic Directors, in ethereal passages recalling the Chinese erhu. In the opening section, the sound of the piano was a bit strident (I’m seldom a fan of piano at full stick in chamber music), but pianist Dena Levine’s artistry in the third section shimmered and glistened with the “saturated” light of the inspirational poem. Nothing in this music was gratuitous, and the performers honored that by giving each note, phrase, and gesture their utmost attention. The louder piano worked well in the more rhythmically charged section toward the end, which also featured symbiotic wind playing between Elizabeth Mann on flute and Jo-Ann Sternberg on clarinet. The call and response finale between the strings and the winds over the rumbles of the piano (used most often in the piece as a percussion instrument) had the kind of drama and energy that makes the final cadence come too quickly for the listener who wants more.

The real showstopper of the evening, however, was the Dvorák sextet. Schwartz’s pre-concert offerings on this work were more captivating and less reliant upon the program notes. He astutely directed the audience’s attention toward the grouping possibilities of the sextet: two groups of three (violin, viola, cello) or three groups of two. I would add, especially given the talents of all six players, six “groups” of one; the ensemble is led primarily by the first violin, but there are moments that unmask the virtuosic and melodic capabilities of each instrument. Violinist Miranda Cuckson’s playing began a little stiffly but soon relaxed and blossomed into moments of poignant lyricism interspersed with dance-like energy. Her impeccable articulation provided a clear thematic beacon, making sure the piece never became passion devoid of musical coherence. Cellists Marc Johnson and Claire Bryant provided consistent warmth and beautiful tone, but it was Bryant who was the most thrilling to watch. Although physicality can sometimes obstruct a musical performance, in Bryant’s case it only added a visual reinforcement of the aural colors and pyrotechnics in Dvorák’s writing.

In the second movement, the duet between Cuckson and Elowitch navigated the emotional fluctuations of the piece with great finesse, allowing Cuckson’s beautiful tone (now fully realized) to fill the hall. The third and final movements showcased the performers’ amazing sense of ensemble in light of scoring that requires challenging individual versatility and musicianship. Violist Carol Rodland’s gorgeous thematic exposition in the finale paved the way for a remarkable set of variations that highlighted the energy and stamina of these six players. Often ignited with a spark from Cuckson that traveled through the sextet like an electric current, the ensemble brought symphonic intensity to the chamber work without forgetting the original medium. The Portland Chamber Music Festival is well worth the drive from Boston, featuring inventive programming and absolutely top-notch musical performances.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Rebecca Marchand photo

American Century Music (ACM), an organization relatively new to the Boston music scene, gave the second of three concerts on Friday afternoon, July 16^tat 12:30 pm, that they are contributing to Boston Public Library’s “Concerts in the Courtyard Series.” The free concert drew a motley lunchtime crowd on a very hot day — some were there by happenstance, others came to hear the ensemble, and still others came as regular attendees at the Courtyard Series, which began July 2 and features free lunch hour concerts every Friday through August 27.

ACM is dedicated to performing 20th-century American repertoire, and with this concert, entitled “An Eclectic Trio,” offered three works by George Antheil, Elliott Carter, and Walter Piston. While Carter is well known to Boston audiences, particularly given his recent centenary celebrations, Antheil and Piston seemed to be more foreign, at least to the audience members with whom I spoke. Antheil’s 1923 Symphony for Five Instruments displayed the talents of Thomas James Wible on flute, Adam Smith on bassoon, Kyle Spraker on trumpet, Keith Almanza on trombone, and Zoe Kemmerling on viola. The scoring, to be sure, is rather unusual, and comes from the pen of one of the more colorful characters in American music history. In addition to his self-described “bad boy” compositions, Antheil also collaborated on a torpedo guidance system with actress Hedy Lamarr and dabbled in topics as wide-ranging as female endocrinology and film music criticism. The Symphony premiered the year before his most famous work, Ballet Mécanique, and unlike the latter piece, is relatively conservative if unorthodox in its instrumentation. ACM’s Artistic Director Scott Parkman remarked that the work, as was the fashion of other contemporary composers at the time, poked fun at existing forms. And while it is true that a five-member ensemble does not a symphony make, there are symphonic gestures and a sensitivity toward texture that suggest Antheil was not completely tongue-in-cheek in his chosen title for the piece.

Parkman admirably conducted the ensemble, gently negotiating the interesting presence of symphonic counterpoint in a chamber-music context. The ensemble playing was excellent throughout, particularly in the middle movement Largo, which calls for incredible sustained control from the wind and brass, punctuated by a light pizzicato in the viola. While the brass solos in the first movement seemed at times a bit unsure, this was smoothed out by their elegance in the Largo and the energized Stravinskian rhythms of the final movement Presto. Wible, in particular, offered tremendously lyrical and beautiful flute lines, highlighting Antheil’s skill for melodic writing against the jaunty staccato motives of the trumpet in the first movement.

Elliott Carter’s Eight Etudes and A Fantasy for Woodwind Quartet (1950) illustrated the immense talents of Wible and Smith again, in addition to Claire Cutting on oboe and Kevin Price on clarinet. The quartet played five of the eight etudes (I, III, IV, V and VI) and the Fantasy, exhibiting both the pedagogical and compositional value of the work. In the first etude (Maestoso), the ensemble had excellent and expressive focus on the sonorities created by the exploitation of each instrument’s range. But it was the second etude, marked Adagio possibile, which was most marvelous. With an opening similar in emotional evocation to that of Copland’s Appalachian Spring, the Adagio hints at the possibility of tonal blooming but never delivers, instead creating a delicious harmonic tension that was beautifully balanced by the quartet. In all of the etudes, in fact, the quartet had an explicit awareness of the parts as well as the whole, giving each of the etudes a significant and remarkable interpretation, but saving something for the Fantasy that throws all the material together. The seventh etude, Allegretto leggero, showcased Wible’s facile flutter tonguing but also the intense energy that all four musicians brought to each note. In the extraordinary Fantasy, the ensemble had a tremendous sense of metric modulation, navigating seamlessly through the score in beautifully articulated fugal counterpoint. Here Adam Smith shone, delighting in the active participation of the bassoon. At some points the quartet’s sforzando punches sacrificed tone, but they otherwise respected the compositional control and finesse in Carter’s writing — even in a fantasy.

Walter Piston’s Divertimento for Nine Instruments (1946) brought the concert to a close. In addition to being Carter’s teacher, Piston was a very apropos addition to the program, given the composer’s connection to the Boston Public Library; it houses over 2,000 items that belonged to Piston, including 25 manuscripts and holographs. Parkman set the stage for the piece by remarking that Piston was the “anti-Antheil.” While this generality is true is most respects, the Divertimento shared the sympho-chamber qualities of the Antheil work. Capitalizing on the historic divertimento, the ensemble (comprised of the wind quartet and joined by Liza Zurlinden and Jae Young C. Lee on violins, Kemmerling on viola, Javier Caballero on cello, and Max Judelson on bass), delivered an exemplary performance of all three movements, but as with the Antheil, really illuminated the slow movement. Cutting’s oboe solo and the gorgeous tone of Zurlinden’s violin brought a poignant, mournful quality to Piston’s “Tranquillo.” The final Vivo was a celebration of 18th-century divertimento rhetoric in modern garb, with its sprightly bassoon figurations and the excellent work of Caballero and Judelson in the low strings. Parkman kept it dancing, even as the relentless Boston sun swallowed pockets of shade in the courtyard.

Parkman’s expressed goal for ACM is to “examine and perform the hundreds of works by 20th-century American classical composers — music that is underrepresented on today’s concert programs.” After the concert, the gentleman sitting next to me asked the woman to his left, “Do you know Piston?” She shook her head. “I don’t either,” he continued. “This is the first I’ve heard him,” he admitted, while clapping enthusiastically. Parkman and the ACM seem to understand that it isn’t about presenting modern music for the sake of its modernity, but for its musicality. Their offering in the dignified piazza of the BPL on a hot and balmy Boston summer day declared hope for renewed dialogue and community for American 20th-century music.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Saturday night’s program opened with Beethoven’s “King Stephen” Overture, Op. 117, followed by the concerto, and a rousing Fifth Symphony after intermission. The all-too-infrequently performed Overture (the last BSO performance was in 1987 under the baton of Charles Dutoit) presented a good counterbalance in programming to the tried-and-true Fifth Symphony. Frühbeck honored the opportunity to bring this less familiar work into the collective musical consciousness of the packed Koussevitsky Music Shed. Giving special attention to the winds, he highlighted certain motivic distinctions that could have easily disappeared under an overwrought sense of Beethovenian extravagance. The orchestra capitalized upon Frühbeck’s sensitivity toward aural cohesion by keeping the sense of overture without sacrificing the value as a stand-alone work. With the exception of a brief moment near the end where the strings entered as if caught by surprise, it was an engaging and solid performance of a piece that deserves more visibility in orchestral programming.

One of the great pleasures of the weekend was to watch Maestro Frühbeck’s rapport with the various soloists. Gerhard Oppitz delivered a performance of Piano Concerto No. 3 that was operatic and virtuosic, if at times a bit heavy in some of the faster passagework. The low strings of the BSO deserve accolades for their responsive attention to the work’s softest (and subtly dramatic) moments. Oppitz and the orchestra delivered a truly magical Largo; wherein the romantic arpeggios underneath the solo winds created an intimate tapestry that blurred the rhetorical lines between soloist and orchestra. Both the ensemble and Oppitz articulated the emotional transformation of the movement’s theme. The final iteration in the piano was both heartbreaking and breathtaking, inviting the listener to wallow in a moment of almost Chopinesque melancholy before the tricky transition to the final Rondo Allegro. Here Oppitz revealed the fun rhythmic flourishes without gimmick. With professional self-possession, he appreciatively allowed orchestral solos and passages to shine, clearly enjoying the duality of performing and listening.

There is, of course, a temptation to end any concert with the Fifth Symphony as if it were one big finale. In some respects it is, taking into account two hundred years of reception history and the fact that it is probably the most recognizable work in the classical repertory. Frühbeck led the orchestra down the familiar path of the score, occasionally highlighting a brief moment here and there, but for the most part allowed the orchestra tremendous agency in their performance of the piece. From the seismic activity in the double basses in the trio of the third movement to the precociousness of the brass in the fourth, the BSO showed no fear of making the work larger than life. The fourth movement was a finale’s finale—the orchestra constantly defying expectations that we had heard everything they had to give until Beethoven’s final C Major affirmation. Frühbeck and the BSO both seemed to know that it is a work that doesn’t need manipulation or surprises to remain relevant and invigorating.

Sunday afternoon’s matinee was altogether a very different concert–more of a showcase of the BSO’s range of stylistic capabilities, as well as Frühbeck’s own versatility as a conductor. Mozart’s Serenade No. 6 in D, K. 239 (“Serenata notturna”) featured BSO Concertmaster Malcolm Lowe, as well as principals Haldan Martinson on violin, Steven Ansell on viola, and Edwin Barker on double bass. Rather than playing as a standard concertino, the quartet maintained the inward intimacy of a string quartet while Frühbeck saw to it that quartet and string orchestra danced together in balance. The opening march was whimsical but never flippant, and negotiated the “maestoso” without ever losing sense of the serenade. The Menuetto offered the best of both worlds with some sublime playing from the solo quartet before the closing Allegretto. Both the quartet and orchestra captured the charm of the final movement, but also illuminated the somewhat surprising Handelian slow episode that is perhaps the most intriguing element of the work.

Pinchas Zukerman, who is no stranger to the BSO either as soloist or conductor, played Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 5 with effortless sophistication. He approached the work with virtuosic gentility, executing amazing dynamic contrasts and nuanced phrasing. One had the sense of almost a private joke between Zukerman and Frühbeck, as the actual conducting seemed to be more of a collaborative effort between the two men. The orchestra seemed very aware of Zukerman’s tender delivery, and made sure to engage in striking moments of appropriate contrast, particularly in the Allegro of the final movement.

But it was not Zukerman who offered the final solo showcase for the evening. That honor went to Malcolm Lowe, who returned as soloist in Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben. Lowe’s performance in “The Hero’s Companion” was a respite from the relentless bombast that inhabits much of the piece. Frühbeck conducted with free abandon and this did have some negative ramifications as the sheer epic proportions of the work can almost usurp the quiet beauty of the solo violin’s mini-concerto. There were other moments of escape as well, including, somewhat aptly, the exquisite English horn and harps in “The Hero’s Escape from the World and Fulfillment.” The “Hero’s Battlefield” section was engaging visually and musically, and the orchestra provided a sound montage that erred only slightly on the side of grandiosity. In the end, it was Lowe’s re-entry with the love theme (as well as resplendent playing by the strings and horns) that allowed the performance to be something more than merely “energized.” His eloquent phrasing and mezzavoce sonorities resonated far more strongly than the tutti sword brandishing and Strauss’s somewhat self-congratulatory exuberance.

Rebecca Marchand holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and serves on the faculty of Longy School of Music and Boston Conservatory.

Ultimately, that’s what it has been — a conversation. Granted, Mr. Sherman may not have intended to have this dialogue with me, but I approached this last concert with a sense of challenge. I had already agreed to disagree with some of his interpretive choices, but I sincerely hoped that I would “get it” this time, because stylistic eccentricities notwithstanding, he is undoubtedly an artist for whom it is worth laying aside one’s own aesthetic boundaries. I also thought about what Gunther Schuller had told me at the previous concert, when I expressed concern about blocking his sightline: “Oh, I don’t need to see him. I listen with my eyes closed.” Bearing those words in mind, I too closed my eyes and limited my attention to three people: Haydn, Schoenberg, and Sherman.

With two of my favorite Haydn sonatas on the program (the C major, Hob. XVI: 50 and E-flat Major, Hob. XVI: 52), I’ll admit to some initial skepticism. But something transformative happened during the Schoenberg Suite für Klavier, Op. 25, the only Schoenberg piece on this particular program. As I listened to the Präludium, I realized that Sherman was bringing out the motives much in the same way he does with Haydn, and somewhere in the middle of the  “Musette” I heard the fluidity I associate with Haydn transferred so beautifully to Schoenberg’s music. He approached the Intermezzo with the same deliberation he gives the Haydn adagios, but also managed to bring out the more “toe-tapping” moments of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone writing. I heard glimmers of the composer’s 1901 Brettl-lieder (Cabaret Songs) that had never been quite so apparent in my previous experience with the piece. Sherman gave over the final Gigue to Schoenberg, navigating its treacherous road with calm assuredness and careful attention.

I finally internalized the connectivity between Schoenberg and Haydn in a way for which I was not quite ready when I started this journey with Mr. Sherman. To be sure, there were still moments where his approach to phrasing felt too explanatory and halting (particularly in the opening Andante of the Sonata in D Major, Hob XVI: 42). In the first movement of the Sonata in E minor, Hob. XVI: 34, however, I enjoyed how he took Haydn’s phrases out of Classical rhetoric and gave them more than a touch of modernity. Sherman played the Vivace finale of the same sonata like a music box, but never mechanically, and never letting the listener tire of repeated phrases.

Truthfully, I was most “worried” about the C Major sonata. In the Allegro, Haydn has tucked in a wealth of jocular motivic gestures, and Sherman honored all of them without breaking the momentum. He really demonstrated Haydn’s great fuel efficiency when it comes to motivic mileage. For many pianists, this movement is about energy, but Sherman’s performance highlighted the coexistence of grace and humor that Haydn does so very well. The beauty of the following Adagio movement was all the more striking against the precociousness of the first. Sherman has a keen sense of finale and did not give Haydn’s jokes in the last movement more than the composer asked for, but made the unexpected silences crucial to understanding the piece.

Sherman closed the concert with Haydn’s Sonata in E-flat Major, and again, it appeared that he took a more conservative approach (for him) to the opening movement, much as he did with the C Major, because Haydn’s writing here is already so seemingly quixotic. He made much of the moments of harmonic transition, exposing Schoenberg in Haydn’s music, much in the same way he had pulled Haydn into Schoenberg’s Suite. I thought there was too much insistence on the repeated note motive in the final movement, but I was taken with the wistfulness conveyed by the prior Adagio. The instrument at Emmanuel has a very bright sound at times, and in that concert room, it can occasionally spar with the acoustic. Sometimes Sherman’s attacks left me wanting more decay to the sound, but he also managed to lull the instrument into a quiet murmur of musical humility in the slow movements.

Ultimately, Russell Sherman’s three concerts have challenged convention in terms of performance practice, historical reception, and aesthetic pigeonholing. In the same way that the cover art on the program interpolates Schoenberg’s 1910 self-portrait and Thomas Hardy’s portrait of Haydn, Sherman’s playing suggests that modernity and tradition are only fleeting and relative concepts when we allow the music to breathe and live anew in performance.

Rebecca Marchand, musicologist and mezzo-soprano, holds a Ph.D in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She serves on the faculty of the Longy School of Music, and teaches also at Boston Conservatory and Providence College.

Before anyone touched the keys on the piano, Sherman took the opportunity to deliver some pre-concert commentary, outlining his performer’s credo and defending what some have called his “liberties” with tempi. Weaving together ideas pulled from sources as varied as Robert Calasso’s Literature and the Gods, Furtwängler, Stravinsky, and Sherlock Holmes, Sherman offered an almost 20-minute exposition, offering lessons learned from a career that has spanned over 60 years. Through his own Sherlockian observation of the music, Sherman told the audience, he looks to create new experiences in performance and reveal the “narrative” of the notes.

In between his pre-emptive apologia and his first piece stood Katherine Chi’s brilliant and sensitive offering of Haydn’s Sonata in b minor, Hob. XVI: 32 and Schoenberg’s Fünf Klavierstücke, op. 23. Chi was careful to recognize the “moderato” of the first movement Allegro, bringing out the bass lines and creating the opening idea afresh with each restatement. She lent an incredible richness to the trio section of the minuet, with sensitive attention to the inner voices. In the finale, Chi maintained an awareness of the wonderful rhetorical gestures of Haydn, and managed to keep the rhythmic motive both insistent and musical. Her approach to Schoenberg was similar–always showing delicate restraint in the beginning in order to allow the music to blossom. She navigated dissonance as consonance, leaving behind the restrictions of diatonicism and reshaping the listener’s context. By the final Walzer, Chi had closed the gap between the Viennese ballroom and Schoenberg’s notes, brilliantly highlighting the composer’s structural ideas through highly nuanced phrasing.

Perhaps it was Katherine Chi’s mediation, or maybe the effect of Sherman’s words, but I found myself more sympathetic to his interpretive choices than during prior performances. He gave jazz-like fluidity to the opening movement of Haydn’s Sonata in A-flat Major, Hob. XVI: 46 and contrasted this with an Adagio I found too meditative, but sensitively conceived. I appreciated the way he continued the strength of a melodic line even as the overlapping statements entered.

Sherman opened the second half of the concert with Haydn’s Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI: 48, revealing an improvisational quality in the opening Andante which brought back his earlier words wherein he compared a note to a glass of wine in that it has a “foretaste, a taste, and an aftertaste.” Sherman’s lack of harmonic pressure brought out the finish of Haydn’s notes, leading toward an achingly beautiful final cadence. In the Rondo, however, Sherman’s phrasing seemed too rushed in an attempt to capture Haydn’s gregarious energy, dismissing some of the more melodic qualities of the theme.

From the piano, Sherman let the audience know that the following Schoenberg Klavierstücke, op. 33 and op. 33b were the “closest thing to a Brahms Intermezzo” recalling his earlier anecdote about his teacher who told him that playing the Brahms intermezzi would “ teach one how to be in love.” Indeed, Sherman’s playing had some positively Romantic moments of introspection, but never lost a sense of horizontal phrasing in order to bring out Schoenberg’s melodies.

Sherman closed the concert with Haydn’s Sonata in E-flat Major, Hob. XVI: 49, most closely aligning this particular work with his statement of purpose. His Allegro was delightful, packed with operetta-like energy as his hands engaged in witty repartee. As Chi did with the B minor sonata, Sherman ensured that every statement of the main theme was fresh and vital. While he may not have convinced me with the A-flat Major Adagio, the slow movement here was wondrous. Sherman perfectly captured the hymn-like qualities of the movement, treating it more as an introspective German cavatina. Even with the ornamented return to the opening material, Sherman kept his hands tightly on the reins, in a perfect balance of passion and cantabile phrasing. The closing minuet-finale was tuneful and joyous, bringing forth the innate laughter in Haydn’s music.

Sherman said he was aiming for “variety in balance with unity.” He has successfully unified Haydn and Schoenberg as masters of their craft across three centuries. Schoenberg’s reputation for iconoclasm often obscures his careful inheritance of older compositional traditions and Sherman successfully pulled the Mozart out of Schoenberg’s writing. As for Haydn, Sherman celebrates the composer’s artistic risks by taking some of his own, always savoring the opportunity with a tremendous warmth and love for the music.

Rebecca Marchand, musicologist and mezzo-soprano, holds a Ph.D in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She serves on the faculty of the Longy School of Music, and teaches also at Boston Conservatory and Providence College.

Jeremy Eichler, in a pre-concert piece in the Boston Globe (March 21, 2010) stated, “You may not necessarily agree with all [Sherman's] interpretive choices. But the sincerity and conviction behind each gesture charge the notes themselves.” I only choose to remark upon this insight here as it so perfectly summarizes my feelings about Sherman’s performance. To be sure, his more risky interpretive moments were most prominently displayed in the Haydn selections. While Sherman has a no-nonsense approach to how he begins playing, his treatment of the Haydn Variations in f minor, in particular, was heavily romanticized and bordered on improvisational. He parsed the different ideas offered by the variations into recollections of Beethovenian pathos, graceful Bach-like counterpoint and the occasional jocularity that is unique to Haydn. I found some of his articulations somewhat enigmatic, but all his choices were driven by a clear sense of performer’s license. He wasn’t afraid to own the music, a right that he has undoubtedly earned.

These interpretative decisions carried through to the other Haydn works on the program: Sonata in D Major, No. 19, Sonata in c minor, no. 20 and Sonata in E-flat Major, No. 28. Sherman’s sensitivity to the thematic delicacy in the opening “Moderato” of No. 19 was delightfully contrasted by the playfulness in his hands, which showed no sign of their 80 years. He highlighted the concerto-like qualities of the finale, exploiting the modern instrument to its fullest advantage. The Sonata in c minor lent itself well to Sherman’s interpretation, particularly in the contrast between galloping energy and dramatic melancholy in the first movement. He handled the “Adagio” with great care, as if each phrase was a beautiful and priceless treasure. For the final movement, Sherman allowed himself the most dramatic flourishes, approaching the difficult cross-handed passages with ease and virtuosic confidence. His performance of the E-flat Major sonata was the most straightforward, bringing a balanced sense of fun to the “Menuet,” especially. The final movement, which brought the concert to a close, amplified the sense I had throughout the entire concert—one not of watching a performer, but instead, a relationship. For roughly an hour and a half, the packed hall became Sherman’s living room, and the audience bore witness to the relationship between the man and his instrument. There was an inescapable sense of intimacy, and it was this that made even the more unorthodox interpretive choices work. Haydn’s music, after all, carries an innate sense of surprise and improvisatory character, and Sherman’s playing challenged the tyranny of rigidity in performance practice.

Schoenberg’s music has the slight advantage of being less popularly tied to stylistic strictures. It was a pleasure to hear Sherman highlight the beauty of this repertoire from the nuanced cluster chords to the shimmers of Debussy. In both the Drei Klavierstücke, op. 11 and the Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke, op. 19, Sherman never dismissed the opportunities for poignancy in a single note, marketing the expressive capacity of atonality. As with the Haydn pieces, Sherman’s attention to cadences gave these much smaller “stücke” shape and definition. Schoenberg wrote of the “emancipation of dissonance,” and Sherman seemed to rejoice in this liberation, letting the resulting overtones in No. 6 of op. 19 fill the silences. He revealed just how much the composer packed into these “little pieces,” most of which last under a minute.

In the end, I liked the moments where Sherman made me uncomfortable. There was no question of artistic integrity, professionalism, or preparation…only the sense that he was perhaps beating these composers at their own game. Sherman brought forth unexpected moments in the music of Haydn and Schoenberg, offering a compelling challenge to preconceived ideas of performance.

Rebecca Marchand, musicologist and mezzo-soprano, holds a Ph.D in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She serves on the faculty of the Longy School of Music, and teaches also at Boston Conservatory and Providence College.

Zerbinetta (soprano Rachele Gilmore) responds to the Composer, (Edyta Kulczak) Jeffrey Dunn for Boston Lyric Opera

The Prologue is one of the most interesting acts in opera, effectively presenting a pre-denouement before the “real” opera has even begun. The audience is given a backstage pass that invites them to view art in general in the same way: messy, conflicted, and reactionary. The effective “backstage” set, designed by Dale Ferguson, highlighted the “all the world’s a stage” moral of the opera itself. Tim Mitchell’s lighting design, particularly in the “Opera” portion (Act II), also underscored this sentiment—contrasting more burlesque footlights for the comedy troupe with grand opéra effects for Ariadne’s remote island. But what really made the message were the performances of mezzo-soprano Edyta Kulczak as the Composer, soprano Rachele Gilmore as Zerbinetta, and Marjorie Owens as the tormented-then-transformed Ariadne. All three of these BLO debut performances were the most captivating of the evening. Kulczak’s inspired portrayal of the Composer balanced brilliant and expressive singing with a tremendous sensitivity to the character’s own passion and naiveté. It is easy to make the Composer an over-the-top, heart-on-the-sleeve “artiste,” but Kulczak delivered a much more nuanced and sympathetic interpretation.

Gilmore and Owens held court for the “Opera” portion, embodying both ends of the diva spectrum, with Gilmore’s coloratura acrobatics at one end, and Owens’ Wagnerian presence at the other. Gilmore’s performance as Zerbinetta was near impeccable, but she sometimes had to compete in the lower range with a rather strident tone from the strings. Like Kulczak, Gilmore also resisted the temptation to make Zerbinetta too much of a stock character, and this made her ultimate pragmatic truths resonate over her follies and antics. This is what makes Ariadne work as a whole. If the comedic troupe is too campy, or the opera cast drowns in melodrama, then what we get is a collision rather than the intended symbiosis. Marjorie Owens made the most of Ariadne’s stunning arias, easily negotiating the subtle switches between her portrayal of Ariadne and the Prima Donna. She was able to lose the Prima Donna from the Prologue gradually, so that by the end of the opera, she truly is the transformed Ariadne, channeling Isolde for her scene with Bacchus. This is an important facet of the opera, for it allows the Prologue and Opera to be part of the same narrative, rather than viewing the former as an explanatory note for the latter. Tenor Brandon Jovanovich gave a stirring performance as Bacchus, matched in Wagnerian weight with Owens’ Ariadne, but occasionally sacrificing too much for the sake of power.

Nymph (soprano Joanna Mongiardo) and Ariadne (soprano Marjorie Owens) Jeffrey Dunn for Boston Lyric Opera

The ensemble too, had some excellent moments. Joanna Mongiardo (Naiad), Andrea Coleman (Dryad), and Mara Bonde (Echo) shimmered together in their ensemble singing. Bonde, especially, shone in the challenging vocal restraint required by Echo. Jesse Blumberg’s Harlequin, like Gilmore’s Zerbinetta, managed to find that bizarre place between the ridiculous and the sublime that the opera demands. Through excellent diction and a measured portrayal, Blumberg brought forth a reality wherein clowns and princesses might chat over coffee.

Conductor Erik Nielsen aptly navigated the stylistic mélange of the score, giving an almost Stravinskian touch to some of the thinner orchestral sections. Neil Armfield’s staging and direction deserves much of the credit for the coherence of the production as a whole. BLO’S Ariadne auf Naxos succeeded with the innate challenges of an opera about an opera, and served as a showcase for exciting and inspiring vocal talent.

Rebecca Marchand, musicologist and mezzo-soprano, holds a Ph.D in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She serves on the faculty of the Longy School of Music, and teaches also at Boston Conservatory and Providence College.

l to r: Deborah Rentz-Moore, Anne Azéma, Lydia Brotherton seated: Robert Mealy

Anne Azéma and the Boston Camerata presented a diverse and fascinating program Friday night, March 5^th,  at First Lutheran Church.  With the church’s draped Lenten cross as a backdrop, Azéma, with mezzo-soprano Deborah Rentz-Moore, soprano Lydia Brotherton, and Robert Mealy (on harp and vielle), presented “The Maria Monologues”—an exploration of the many faces and dimensions of “Mary” in the Middle Ages.

The program was divided into three parts. The first explored the Annunciation and ensuing Magnificat, as the Virgin Mary grapples with the extraordinary news that she will give birth to the Savior. Opening with a 13^th-century cantiga, “Des oge mais,” Anne Azéma instantly brought the audience into the narrative with her engaging and communicative style. The interpolation of William Butler Yeats “The Mother of God” was expertly crafted, weaving Mary through the 12^th century up through a modern Mary who honestly admits, “The terror of all terrors that I bore/The Heavens in my womb.” Azéma, Brotherton and Rentz-Moore all have distinctive styles as singers and performers, and it was both their individuality as well as their ability to blend magically into a sort of amalgamated Mary that made the evening’s performance so successful.

The second section of the program, “The Dawn Approaching” placed the two Marys (Magadalene and the Blessed Virgin) at the foot of the Cross. In the “Stabat iuxta Christi crucem,” from the 13^th-century Las Huelgas codex, the singers offered a nuanced delivery of the dissonant “Intus martyr consecratur/intus sui iugulatur/mater agni gladio” (Inwardly she is being nailed to the cross, inwardly the mother is being slain, by the sword of her Lamb being slain). Azéma spoke to the audience of how Mary as mother would be the voice of the congregation during a Passion play, and there was no greater expression of this than her own performance of the 13^th-century Marien Klage, accompanied by the mournful yet beautiful sonorities of Mealy’s vielle.  Her heart-wrenching descending cries of “Dot cum nym us beyde” (Death, come take us both!) and “syn dot mik dodet” (His death kills me) brought forth the universal in grief.

The closing section was given over to the ambiguous and multi-dimensional figure of Mary Magdalene. Rentz-Moore became a 13^th-century Carmen in her depiction of the heavily rouged Mary in “Mihi confer, venditor, species emendas” from the Carmina Burana texts, bringing an earthy relevance to Mary’s joy in worldly love. Lydia Brotherton’s redeemed and penitent Mary in “Chanter voel par grant amor” showcased her amazingly pure and lyrical singing, which beautifully balanced the sultry richness of Rentz-Moore’s voice. Both women shone in the dialogue between Mary Magdalene and the angel at the tomb, excerpted from the 13^th century Origny Mystery Play.

Anne Azéma with her organistrum (Boston Camerata Image)

Watching Azéma sing, while playing the organistrum, was the most visual pleasure of the evening. She performed much of the repertoire as folksong, with an affability and ease that made the music all the more accessible. Particularly in tandem with Mealy’s virtuosic performance on the vielle, these two performers demonstrated why “early music” deserves a more prominent place in the mainstream and shouldn’t be relegated to historical artifact status.  The final benediction, offered by all four performers, was a glorious and life-affirming reminder that florid organum is no less a legitimate musical experience than a Bach chorale or a Beethoven symphony.

Rebecca Marchand, musicologist and mezzo-soprano, holds a Ph.D in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She serves on the faculty of the Longy School of Music, and teaches also at Boston Conservatory and Providence College.

Church of the Covenant, while providing a very nice acoustic for certain choral repertoire, did not assist the antiphonal texture of the Brahms and at times muddied the articulation of the middle voices. Given this challenge, however, the chorus worked hard to deliver the motivic interplay between the two choirs. The sopranos, in particular, offered beautiful vibrato-free lines in the homophonic sections, creating a reminder of just how much Brahms’ work is en hommage to the earlier traditions of composers like Johann Rosenmüller and Heinrich Schütz. The chorus deftly negotiated the Baroque alongside the more Brahmsian gestures, providing a seamless marriage of old and new.

John Tavener’s Song for Athene (1993) followed, and Artistic Director David Hodgkins requested that applause be held as the piece would be sung in memory of the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. With headlines still fresh from Saturday morning’s earthquake in Chile, the work became all the more resonant. Here, the chorus was clearly attuned to the piece’s relevancy, expressed most fervently with the transition to the text, “Life: a shadow and a dream” which could have served as a thematic subtitle for the concert as a whole.

The chorus seemed slightly less labored with Poulenc’s Three Latin Motets than with the Brahms, perhaps this as a result of more familiar texts. In the “Exultate Deo” especially, the ensemble exhibited great sensitivity to the jubilant text and the fanfare figures. The Lenten meditation “Vinea mea electa” sacrificed some sense of forward movement for the vertical sonorities, but the close watch of chorus’s director was heartening.

The first half of the concert closed with a stunning performance by former BSO flutist Fenwick Smith, this year’s recipient of Coro Allegro’s third annual Daniel Pinkham award. (Past recipients were baritone Sanford Sylvan in 2008 and Bishop Gene Robinson in 2009.) Smith performed Elegy for alto flute that was written for him by Daniel Pinkham. The haunting melodies of the elegy traveled through the sanctuary, evoking the memory of a composer whose death in 2006 remains fresh for many in the greater Boston musical community. Smith’s performance preceded the presentation of the award and the offering of a few words by Pinkham’s partner, Andrew Holman. But Pinkham’s work also provided a segue to the second half of the concert, where the audience is asked to confront the unrelenting reality of Death itself.

Under the vise-like grip of the Third Reich, composer Hugo Distler committed suicide in 1942 at the age of 34. That alone would already make his Totentanz eerily prescient, but the presentation by Coro Allegro, assisted by Richard Knisley as Death and Fenwick Smith on the flute was one of the most profound experiences I’ve witnessed at a choral concert in recent memory. The Totentanz brought together all the various elements of the concert, not just the theme of Death in all its guises, but a sense of historical continuity as well. Distler’s Totentanz is fashioned after a medieval liturgical drama or morality play and is largely a response to a mural the composer saw at the Marienkirche in Lübeck. The painting depicted Death dancing indiscriminately with a variety of people, as a metaphor for the “Black Death” that significantly reduced Europe’s population in the 14^th century. The chorus, for its part, sings 12 settings of mystical “Sprüche” that address the pragmatic questions of death ( “Man, this world’s beauteous form will fade away in time./Why then depend so much on passing joys?”). The flute acts as both a ritornello and prelude, often providing a musical preamble to Death’s next invitation, such as the dancelike hornpipe that precedes Death’s invitation to the Sailor.

The speakers who participated in the work were, in most cases, not far removed from their real-life positions: UCC minister Elizabeth Ann King in the role of the Bishop, primary care physician Dr. Guy Pugh in the role of the Doctor, cellist and sheet music dealer Rob Bethel as the Merchant, and farm manager Laura Olive Sackton as the Farmer, to name just a few. But it was the last speaker, fourth grader Ashwin Devavaram (as the Child) who offered the most sobering (and poised) spoken performance of the afternoon. Unlike the Old Man (poignantly spoken by Eric Davis, famed teacher at Commonwealth school since 1972) who eagerly awaits his turn to join the dance of Death, the Child is confused, and the chorus sings “The soul which on earth is smaller than small/Shall in the realm of God the fairest angel be.” Aside from some strained pitches in upper voices, the chorus delivered a nuanced performance of Distler’s challenging shifts from organum to polyphony, capturing the importance of the text in each motet. The diction was clearly articulated in most cases (especially good vowels), although some of the final consonants were lost to the music’s texture. It was moments such as the mocking counterpoint in the motet for the Doctor (“Your greatest Friend, your body, it is your fiercest foe…”), when the chorus demonstrated their ability to grapple with issues of both musical and textual significance. Richard Knisley’s performance recalled the figure of Death in Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal, whose patience and inevitability is at once chilling and familiar. The “Sprüche” texts do this too, by lending an unsettling familiarity to the universal question we all face. Coro Allegro’s entire performance was an elegant meditation on this most perplexing and difficult of subjects.

Rebecca Marchand, musicologist and mezzo-soprano, holds a Ph.D in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She serves on the faculty of the Longy School of Music, and teaches also at Boston Conservatory and Providence College.