The first piece on the program, a flute and violin duet written by Christopher Coughlin, was a response to “Leg,” one of Bloom’s viscerally beautiful morgue paintings. Despite the extremity of typical reactions to images of severed limbs, Coughlin’s piece was rather contemplative and placid and given a sensitive but reserved performance by Bethanne Walker (flute) and Chia-Li Ho (violin). Throughout this somber piece of dark harmonies and the occasional biting dissonance, the flute and violin, by and large worked in tandem throughout the piece, trading phrases and coming together to finish each other’s gestures.

Patrick Greene’s Still Life, 1985, an accompaniment to the painting of the same name, was similarly contemplative, but with a bit more contrast to its ebb and flow. The eponymous painting was one of several in which Bloom rendered vases amassed on a draped table with a bold Technicolor palate and an evocative depiction of light glinting off the golden surfaces. This clarinet, viola, and cello trio began with all three instruments in a single note unison passage that soon broke out into short micro melodies energetically led by the clarinetist Kevin Price. As the piece progressed, longer passages of somber melody and harmony emerged, again with the clarinet in the lead and the strings setting the foundation. Eventually, violist Zoe Kemmerling and cellist Christopher Homick took center stage with a beautifully played elegiac melody. The coda then collapsed back into a harmonically reduced and texturally sparse section reminiscent of the introductory passages. This coda however, was less of a denouement and more of a revelation, like the moment when light breaks into a room, revealing what was previously hidden.

Jason Huffman’s string trio Christmas Tree is the first of s series of works that reflects Bloom’s series of paintings on that subject. Like Bloom’s works, Huffman’s music illuminates a somber stillness activated by haloes of color and pointed brushstrokes. The trio begins with a wispy sul ponticello before an assertive gestures opens up the full tone of the ensemble. Lyrical impulses give each instrument its moment in the spotlight, culminating in a very active section marked by hocketting. Sul ponticello resumes in the final section of the piece, broken up by striking pizzicatos.

Bert von Herck’s Swims the Water was the only piece whose companion painting was not on display in the Alpha Gallery, and given van Herck’s playful music, I was curious to see a perhaps more light-hearted side of Bloom’s work. This duet for bass clarinet and cello was built around a propulsive, syncopated rhythm that was contrasted and combined with short melodies and ornamental flourishes. Clarinetist Price and cellist Christopher Homick went at it as if they were involved in a marvelous game, rendering the dissonances and the surprising growling sounds in the bass clarinet completely delightful.

Leg and Skull by Aaron Jay Myers used a combination of triangle, Chinese gongs, temple bowls, woodblocks, and chimes to evoke the beauty and shock of another one of Bloom’s morgue paintings. Although the piece had only the briefest moments of discernible melody, percussionist Masako Kunimoto skillfully rendered the deft transitions between timbres and the ebb and flow of dynamics to bring out the organic development of the piece and its contrasting ethereal and confrontational sounds.

The concert concluded with Mischa Salkind-Pearl’s Still Life, 2009 for violin, clarinet, and percussion, an homage to Hyman Bloom’s last still-life painting. Salkind-Pearl’s piece maintains the solemnity of much of the music on the program, but with a deliberateness of timbre and pacing that is all his own. In the initial section of the piece, simple lines are exquisitely rendered over a drone that gets passed among the instruments. The second section increases the rhythmic density and broadens the registral scope while maintaining the initial texture. As the piece comes to its close, the percussion remains active while the violin and clarinet return too the slower pace of the beginning, bringing both the trio and the concert as a whole to a darkly peaceful close.

Stefanie Lubkowski is a composer and doctoral candidate at Boston University. She is very active in the Boston new music scene and sits on the board of the New Gallery Concert Series.

In my sonorously stimulated imagination, if I could have invited anyone, living or dead, to sit next to me under the richly romantic and acoustically vibrant interior of the Church of the Covenant in Boston, it would be the soul of Herr Bach – gasping and marveling at the mystical possibilities of dissonance in a post-Brahmsian homophony as opposed to counterpoint – supported by the sub-earthly rumble of extended bass and the occasional driving syncopation of dances, not of the French court, but joyously and proudly drawn from the Russian folksongs and rhythms of the composer’s childhood homeland. I could not help but imagine the old German master empathically sympathizing with the spiritually boundless reverence invoked by the harmonic ingenuity of these sacred choral works passionately forged upon the roots of Eastern Orthodox liturgical tradition. And through Coro Allegro’s stunning interpretation, that reverence was profoundly transmitted through them to a deeply grateful audience.

Written as an a cappella piece following the dictates of the church, all reference of pitch was drawn from introductory bells succeeded by the chanting of Deacon Jason Villarreal, baritone, and/or Celebrant Taras Leschishin, tenor. Villarreal’s voice was a younger and lighter baritone singing the part of a basso profundo, but with good command of the Russian language and musical sensitivity. Leschishin’s powerful tenor voice was perfectly suited to capture both the Russian flavor of the language and the music.

When demonstrating this piece to a colleague on the piano, with his characteristically large hands grasping inhumanly wide intervals, goes an anecdote, Rachmaninoff received the complaint that finding basses that can make sufficient sound in a tessitura that low are “as rare as asparagus at Christmas.” Being that it is spring in Boston, there were apparently plenty of asparagus to go around, and the strong, youthful bass section of Coro Allegro’s team of excellent musicians was sufficiently powerful. Standing in for a traditional men and boys chorus was an adult choir with Anglican-style accuracy of intonation from the sopranos and altos; and although Rachmaninoff may have been influenced most directly by Tchaikovsky and other Russian contemporaries, it is aurally difficult to dismiss the artistic affinity he seemed to share with Brahms when writing treble choral parts. One of the highlights of the evening in this regard was the luminously and exquisitely sung Cherubic Hymn. In combination with a strong tenor section, the full choir was first introduced to us with a beautifully open chord – lulling, rocking, growing – and when finally breaking out into syncopation, the sound was glorious, ringing out a broad and color-rich orchestral spectrum that made the harmonic complexity of Rachmaninoff’s homophony sound like it effortlessly tuned itself.

Within the text and translations of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom were a number of recognizable English translations, including The Lord’s Prayer, the Nicene Creed, as well as the Beatitudes. Through the help of the program, any non-Russian but Anglican or Roman Catholic member of the audience could appreciate by memory these inspired settings, and by the looks of the choir members’ faces, empathize with what a pleasure they were to sing as well as professedly a pleasure for Rachmaninoff to compose.

Composing this piece had formerly eluded him, but after a long American tour, Rachmaninoff returned to Russia and to his uncle’s estate (which he inherited), homesick for his native land. Immersing himself in his own culture, he had a breakthrough and finished the composition in approximately three weeks, in 1910. Rachmaninoff wrote:

I have been thinking about the Liturgy for a long time, and for a long time I strove to write it. I started to work on it somehow by chance, and then suddenly became fascinated with it. And then I finished it very quickly. Not for a long time have I written anything with such pleasure.

Soprano Yoshi Campbell’s beautifully written program notes describe Rachmaninoff as “spiritual” but not “religious” – a suitable label and all too relevant cliché of our times. A great lover of church music, but an attritional attendee, Rachmaninoff describes fondly his childhood memories with his Grandmother:

We spent hours standing in the beautiful St. Petersburg churches. Being a greenhorn, I took less interest in God and religious worship than in the singing… especially in the cathedrals where one frequently heard the best choirs of St. Petersburg…”

Campbell states:

Despite the pains that Rachmaninoff had taken to comply with their strictures, the ecclesiastical authorities would not sanction the Liturgy for church performance due to what they called its “spirit of modernism.” A teacher of religious studies explained that it was “absolutely wonderful, even too beautiful, but with such music it would be difficult to pray; it is not church music”… Whether or not it was indeed “too beautiful” to be proper church music, there seems no doubt of the absolutely wonderful nature of Rachmaninoff’s setting of the liturgy… Rachmaninoff did not just set the text, he brought the ritual to life.

With the Communist Revolution forcing him to flee his homeland seven years later, Rachmaninoff’s liturgical music was banned from even concert performance for decades. Coro Allegro, as an acclaimed chorus for members and friends of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities, whose partial mission is to provide access to classical choral music for a broad audience and to bring together disparate communities for shared musical experience, performed this sacred concert with heartfelt sincerity in the midst of our modern political division, controversy and disillusionment with Christianity. Diana Butler Bass writes in her latest book, Christianity after Religion, “Why is it that the choice among churches always seems to be a choice between intelligence on ice or ignorance on fire?” Regarding this performance and the  place of the arts in our spiritual lives, I cannot imagine a more exemplary religious expression of “intelligence on fire.”

Janine Wanée holds a B.Mus. degree from the University of Southern California, a M.Mus. from Boston University, and professional certificates from the Boston University Opera Institute and summer Acting Shakespeare course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She is currently a member of the Copley Singers under Brian Jones.

Shuann Chai and Yuan Sheng (Christopher Greenleaf photo)

For last Sunday’s recital on the Frederick Historical Piano Concerts series in Ashburnham, two pianists who have appeared previously individually joined forces for a program of solo and duo works by the Schumanns and Brahms. Chinese-American Shuann Chai, who is now based in Manchester, UK, was making her sixth appearance and Chinese pianist Yuan Sheng, professor at the Beijing Conservatory, but who earned his B.M. and M.M. degrees at the Manhattan School of Music in NYC, his third, but this was their first duet outing.

The instrument that they chose from the Frederick Collection was the 1868 Streicher, with the somewhat diabolical serial number 6668. It is parallel strung, with the overspun bass strings on a separate bridge, bass register single strung, the tenor register double, and the remainder triple strung, with a range of seven octaves. The hammers have leather covers, with felt beneath most except the very top notes. It is just over seven feet nine inches long and has a walnut veneer case with a wooden frame with two iron tension bars, but no metal string plate, and only the then-standard two pedals. The firm’s characteristic elaborate nameplate on the fallboard says: “J.B. Streicher / K.K. Hof & Kammer Pianoforte Fabrikant / & Sohn in Wien ” [= Johann Baptist Streicher / Königliche Kaiserliche (Royal Imperial) Court & Home Piano Manufacturer / & Son in Vienna] spread over three lines. For more information about this legendary company, readers may consult the beginning paragraphs of my review  of a concert in which was used the Collection’s 1871 instrument, identical to the one Brahms owned and made in the same year. The instrument has a clear tone, resonant and warm because of the quantity of wood and the lack of metal, mellow and somewhat throaty, that the Fredericks described in the program book as “transparent. ” Although it is definitely a Romantic instrument, shining in lyrical and energetic moments, it is less bright than a modern Steinway and has considerably more color, with notable differences among the registers that remain distinct from each other while yet pleasantly blending.

Chai and Sheng opened and closed their program, composed of works mostly written within a single decade that ended a decade before the instrument was built, with the duet works, Chai handling the upper register and Sheng the lower and the pedals in both cases, and playing from scores, pretty much essential in duet playing. The opener was Robert Schumann’s Bilder aus Osten, op. 66 (1848), often charmingly but inappropriately translated as “Images from the Orient,” but it literally means “Pictures from the East”; and the melodies and rhythms come, in fact, from Central Europe, East of Germany, not from the Far East. It is a set of six varied impromptus.

Sheng followed this, playing from memory, with what the printed program listed as Brahms’s 16 Variations on a theme of Robert Schumann, op. 54 (1861), but I am familiar with the work of this title as op. 9 (1854), written for Clara Schumann after the birth of her eighth child and after Robert was institutionalized, when Brahms was offering her support and companionship, since she was not permitted to visit Robert; Schumann had delivered the variations piecemeal, collecting them afterwards. The theme comes from Robert’s Albumblatt in F-sharp minor from his Bunte Blätter, op. 99 (1836-49).

After offering some interesting commentary about Clara and Robert’s relationship, Clara’s music and her career before and after Robert’s death, and her relationship with Brahms, Chai opened the second half of the program with Clara’s [Seven] Variations on a theme of Robert Schumann, op. 20 (1853), work that she offered to Robert on his 43^rd birthday, the year before his breakdown. The theme is the same one that Brahms used in his op. 9, played earlier. These variations stay closer to the theme, which always remains readily recognizable, than do those of the Brahms work, and they allowed a different aspect of the instrument to stand out. The piece also demonstrated that Chai is as good an ambassador for Clara’s works as Clara was for Robert’s. Chai followed this with Robert’s Drei Fantasiestücke, op. 111 (1851), perhaps the most familiar of all the works on the program thus far, and the one with the greatest internal variety, although Chai was very restrained in her body movements and concentrated in her execution, even in places where some pianists tend to become quite demonstrative. She used scores for both works.

The duo concluded with the first five of Brahms’s 21 Hungarian Dances, WoO 1, (1858-69) in their original piano four-hand versions, thus ending a program of generally calm, cerebral works that showed off the instrument’s potential in a more quiet manner — although with a few brilliant moments, with one of more exuberant bravura that demonstrated its power; but the pieces were more harmonious and mellifluous and less brilliant, boisterous, and raucous than they sound on a modern Steinway-like instrument. Playing was impeccable throughout the recital and the partnership was polished. Future visits and collaborations will be most welcome.

Marvin J. Ward, a retired translator and teacher of French (Ph.D., UNC Chapel Hill), has been writing for Classical Voice of North Carolina, a professional journal, for a decade and was founding Executive Editor of Classical Voice of New England through December, 2009. He is now a Five Colleges Associate based at Smith College.

Jehan Alain was an early-20th-century French composer whose short life and composing career ended abruptly in combat during World War II. Yet he left a choice body of work which clearly expresses his interest in music by his older contemporary, Claude Debussy, the music of the far east, jazz, and the Renaissance. As a member of a musical family and a church musician himself from age 11, he clearly was deeply immersed in the ritual and music of Catholicism, and some of his most well-known works are for organ or on religious themes. What a perfect idea, then, to present the music of Alain in the setting of Mission Church, surely one of Boston’s most beautiful churches, and one in which Alain himself would most certainly have felt at home.

Tim Macri is part of the music staff at Mission Church, so he opened the program with the Introit to the Seventh Sunday in Easter, followed by a solo flute piece of Alain’s, Monodie, from 1938. Macri described Alain’s music in his opening comments as “very strange, to ethereally gorgeous.” This piece had a very improvisatory character with an Arabic flavor. Macri’s flute playing soared in the expansive space of the church. He has a particular gift for phrasing, and an unerring sense of time; no phrase is rushed but is rounded to what seems the only right conclusion.

The second work was Debussy’s Prelude a L’apres midi d’une faune, with Macri accompanied by pianist Scott Nicholas. To be accompanied by Nicholas must surely feel as though one had slid behind the wheel of a finely tuned, very luxurious sports car. His playing has power and control, but most of all, he makes the other player look good. Clearly an artist in his own right, his sensitivity to the person he is accompanying is so subtle as to be nearly invisible. He is able convey light and music and air and so many colors that you forget it is a piano you are listening to, and not a brook in a wooded forest with glints of sunlight dappling the surface of the water. A perfect accompaniment for Macri’s faun/flute, which was at times joyful, languid, passionate, and unhurried in his enjoyment of what must have been quite an afternoon.

Trois Mouvements” by Alain allowed Nicholas and Macri to show off a different kind of sound, at times thin and icy, at times warm, supple and sensuous. The third movement, Allegro Vivace, had a moto perpetuo character, trading melodies and jagged jazzy rhythms between flute & piano.

Prelude et Fugue sur le nom d’A.L.A.I.N”, for organ, op. 7, by Duruflé, was written in 1942 as a tribute to his fallen friend and colleague; using the notes ADAAF as a theme, Duruflé wrote an impressive work. Glen Goda, music director and organist at Mission Church, gave this challenging piece a wonderful, powerful performance. It would be worth a visit to Mission Church just to hear the organ, George Hutchings op. 410, considered at its installation in 1897 to be one of the finest in the world. Its sound can range from a low, cat-like rumble, to full brass and organ tones. It filled the vastness of Mission Church with some pretty glorious sounds.

Alain’s Messe Modale, from 1938, was one of his last works. The full ensemble, Macri on flute, violinists Noemi Miloradovic and Charles Dimmick, violist Scot Woolweaver, cellist John Bumstead, and bassist Luke Sutherland, represents some of the cream of Boston’s freelancer crop. These musicians played with sensitivity, great balance, and beautifully matched tone and accompanied the equally lovely singing of soprano Kelly Hopkins and alto Mary Gerbi.

The music of Messe Modale is reminiscent of Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem or Britten’s War Requiem, though condensed into a concentrated form. The work is quite short, Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, lasting about 12 minutes. The Sanctus had the most modal harmonies, but it was the last line for the Agnus Dei which stood out: “Dona nobis pacem”; the chord underscoring “pacem” was darkly ominous, clearly showing that for a French musician who had lived through World War I and could see the looming clouds of World War II approaching, peace was not something to be taken lightly, or likely to be seen anytime soon.

The concert concluded with a serene and beautiful rendition of Fauré’s Pavane for the same grouping. Macri arranged the work with beautiful contrapuntal exchanges, and the round pizzicato sounds of cello, bass and viola were particularly lovely.

All in all, this concert was a loving tribute to a musician whose unusual work deserves a wider hearing.

Elisa Birdseye, executive director of the Boston Chamber Ensemble, is an active freelance violist and principal violist of the New Bedford Symphony. Additionally, she has worked as the general manager of the New England Philharmonic and Boston Musica Viva.

The Beijing Modern Music Festival, for those like your correspondent who had no inkling, is an annual event that, having begun 10 years ago as a chiefly domestic operation, rapidly developed into an international event combining orchestral and chamber concerts, master classes, workshops, and lectures.

It is funded both privately and by the Chinese ministries of culture and education and operates out of the facilities of the Central Conservatory of Music, whose director, Wang Cizhao, is the festival’s titular producer. The festival’s founder, composer Xiaoging Ye (who, like several other people we observed among the creative set prefers to order his name Western-style), is the artistic director. Students at the CCM and other Chinese music schools staff the festival and supplement the imported and native professional ensembles.

There have been many eminent Western ensembles who have performed at the festival, beginning in its first “international” year, 2004, with the New York New Music Ensemble and the Ensemble Zurich. This year’s complement includes Boston’s Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, the newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble from Kansas City, Missouri, and the Third Angle Ensemble Consort from Portland, Oregon. Many of the foreign composers whose works are featured have shown up as well, including James Mobberley and Chen Yi, both now affiliated with the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Boston’s Scott Wheeler and Yu-Hui Chang (whose surname the festival program printers have “corrected” in transliteration as Zhang), Stephen Hartke, Robert Beaser, Norbert Palej (a Pole now resident in Canada), Enjott Schneider from Germany, and Narong Prangcharoen from Thailand.

The venues for performances are spread out over downtown Beijing, from the Concert Hall of the elephantine “egg” of the National Center for Performing Arts (about which more later), to the nearby mid-sized and user-friendly Beijing Concert Hall, to the more intimate concert and recital halls of CCM.

The festival’s opening concert at the NCPA Concert Hall was an orchestral program called “At the Edge of Time” after a Schneider piece on the program. The orchestra was the China NCPA Orchestra, an internationally recruited band formed contemporaneously with the Center four years ago and conducted by Lv Jia. This dispatch does not purport to be a review but will describe what went on as an insight into creative enterprise in today’s China. Some of the physical circumstances proved enlightening in their own right.

The Concert Hall is one of four performance spaces within the vast NCPA, which carries forward the tradition of grandiosity that gave the world the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Great Hall of the People’s Congress, to say nothing of the forbidding monoliths lining Financial Street, and is accessible directly from the subway (fare: 2 yuan, or 37¢). If you have your ticket, you are processed through the ubiquitous security scanner. China has them everywhere: in the subway, and even in open spaces like Tiananmen, but this one is doubly diligent: bags through the x-ray and wand searches. Not only is photography prohibited in the hall, but anyone with a camera is sternly ordered to check it. Bottled water, which everyone carries because tap water is not potable, is also verboten, and not because they sell it inside (one could refresh oneself at the bubbler, or as they charmingly call it, the “hydrant”). Of course, once in the hall, people were snapping pics left and right. Phones are not confiscated.

Another thing that might astonish those accustomed to stateside contemporary music concerts was the packed house. At a guess, the Concert Hall holds a good 1,500 seats minimum, and there were bottoms in nearly all of them. Whether the ears indirectly attached to those bottoms expected to hear what they did is another matter: applause for almost everything was, considering the size of the audience, rather wan and brief by the admittedly rather inflated US standards. The per-capita consumption of music education in China is higher than just about any place, and we suspect many teachers made a point of having their students, and the students’ parents, attend. It’s anybody’s guess how many attendees actually bought tickets.

Those of you who attend closely to matters acoustical may find it interesting that from where we sat, well forward in the orchestra section, the sound of the strings and, to a degree, even the solo piano, was rather muffled. It is possible that the acoustic design throws the sound upward (the seating is raked); nobody we knew was seated far enough back for us to compare experiences.

The event began, as so many festivals do, with a round of acknowledgments to sponsors and organizers. What we didn’t see coming was how this was done. An emcee in big hair and sequined tuxedo (and — wait for it, a sequined bow tie!) read off the necessaries, and the honorees and their official award presenters were then escorted to the stage by a bevy of lovelies in long gowns doing their best Vanna White imitations. These then handed each presenter, in uniform sequence, a dust-catcher trophy, a leather-bound certificate, and a bouquet; the presenters handed these over to the honorees in time-honored photo-op poses. This process, we were informed, is quite common in China.

The actual concert that followed happened in pretty much the normal way. The program featured Chen’s Blue, Blue Sky, Prangcharoen’s Illuminations, and the aforementioned Schneider work, At the Edge of Time, before the intermission; then Zou Hang’s The Color of Beijing and Beaser’s Piano Concerto afterwards, the latter with British soloist Christopher Janwong McKiggan (that middle name bespeaking an ethnic Chinese Thai mother). Anyone who has heard Chen’s music would know what to expect: milky sonorities balancing Chinese tradition with Western craft. To a Chinese audience this was not new news. The Prangcharoen was something else, a statement that high modernism still lives in an Asian wrapper. Schneider’s piece quotes from and stitches together fragments from Mozart’s Requiem and had been part of the quarter-millennium Mozart celebrations of 2006. In sharp contrast to these somewhat cerebral and ethereal exercises, the two post-intermission works were unabashedly populist. Zou has been active as a composer of film and TV scores in addition to standard classical genres, and his piece on the program, though written without a specific event in mind, is somewhat in the spirit of John Williams, especially with its fanfare opening; although sonically, with its patriotic-folkloric affect and quartal harmonies it conveys a sense of — how shall we say? — Chinese Copland. (Fanfare for the Common Cadre, anyone?) The concluding work was the Beaser, written originally for the Louisville Orchestra in the days of Leonard Slatkin. Its mash-up of Gershwin, Bernstein, Copland, Barber and — in its opening central motif — Vaughan Willliams over a Rachmaninovian piano texture was the work that brought the hitherto reserved audience to exuberant life.

In future days we hope to bring you some more vignettes of the festival and other musical events here (hoping to get tickets for Un Ballo in Maschera). Stay tuned.

Vance R. Koven studied music at Queens College and New England Conservatory, and law at Harvard. A composer and practicing attorney, he was for many years the chairman of Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble.

What is at the same time both wonderful and mystifying is how little remained constant in the pieces performed on Saturday evening. As Jay Rosenberg commented during the performance, what we now know as the Sephardic communities originated as the Jewish populations on the Iberian peninsula. This population developed a very particular Jewish heritage for roughly 1,500 years but then was dispersed across the Mediterranean during the Spanish Inquisition of the 16th century. What results is somewhat astonishing — Spanish ballades with Turkish choruses (Por la tu puerta yo pasí), Ladino cropping up in Greece or Bulgaria (Tres ermanikas eran, or Se veriax a la rana), not to mention the rich cultural traditions of Morocco, Romania, Yugoslavia, Egypt and the Balkans. Saturday evening’s concert keenly demonstrated that the cultural heritage of pre-Inquisition Spanish Judaism is very much alive and vibrant to this day.

Voice of the Turtle returned after a three-year hiatus after the untimely death of Judith Wachs. In addition to the original members of Lisle Kulbach and Jay Rosenberg, the ensemble introduced its newest member, Ian Pomerantz, who bore the vocal burden for the majority of the concert. Pomerantz’s voice is ideal for this form of folk music — a rich baritone capable of broad proclamations, as in the Hebrew blessing over wine and fruit while maintaining the lyrical qualities of more nuanced passages, particularly the Romanian lullaby Durme, durme, or the Balkan love-song Pasharo D’ermozura. Yet Pomerantz’s substantial talents (often, he was featured on an instrument simultaneous with his singing) is not to overlook the considerable contributions of each of the other members. Jay Rosenberg and Lisle Kulbach showed remarkable proficiency on a variety of instruments that included (but by no means were limited to) the ‘ud, guitar, psaltery, violin and flutes, a mere snapshot of the musical traditions represented. Former member Derek Burrow joined the ensemble in leading the audience in the final work of the evening, a Bulgarian ballad  El Koron de los muchachos — with some Turkish words.

Clearly this music is redolent in deep cultural and personal history, as evidenced by the occasional reminiscences from the performers of family members’ travels and flight from the Mediterranean to the United States. Saturday’s performances were enlightening in a deeply essential way: it is rare to hear the instruments and languages that were on Saturday’s program, let alone hear them synthesized into a performance of music (all the texts and translations are downloadable as a Word doc here.) However, it is impossible not to feel that there was a rich heritage that was not explained on Friday afternoon, to explore more fully the meaning of what “Sephardic music” means. The performance of a new work on the program — a productive collaboration between Pomerantz and poet Gracia Jak Albuhayre (Tornate kerida–scored for voice, guitar and violin) — only emphasizes the need to highlight the living and vibrant cultures. Certainly, a tradition that spans from Spain to Turkey, synthesizing the languages, harmonic devices, and melodies of the various cultures it encounters would have benefited from more explanation and educational arch in the programming.

Sudeep Agarwala is a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He performs with various choral groups throughout Boston and Cambridge.

For all its flaws, the Metropolitan’s “Enchanted Island,” as seen locally on WGBH-TV last Friday, provided us with some interesting insights into the profound nature and meaning of that oddest of human enterprises, opera.

It was a great A&R idea to have commissioned this pastiche of eighteenth century music, with a new, ad-hoc scenario for the Met. The inspiration for such an enterprise is the baroque music revival in Europe, where national opera houses and festivals are able to lavish major resources on seventeenth and eighteenth century operas, featuring adequately funded, historically informed performances in tandem with the indispensable, opulent theatrical values (“historical” or modernized, whatever) that make for a satisfying all-in-one experience.

For all kinds of reasons,  mainly our American private-market system of funding the arts, it is very, very difficult to make such things come about successfully here at home.  Our best taste of these kinds of productions are probably obtained via the French-government-subsidized appearances of Les Arts Florissants in New York.

The Metropolitan Opera has,  perhaps uniquely in the U.S.A.,  the deep pockets necessary to produce genuinely spectacular spectacles. But the size and scale of the Met’s room make “real” baroque opera almost impossible to realize there.  The culture of New York City loud singing is just too inimical to the musical/literary values of early opera to permit success (one can argue, listening over the air to some of the Met’s “mainstream” productions, that such strictures are also relevant to more recent operatic repertoire; but that’s another essay).

The other problem with many baroque operas is, let’s be honest, that the plots can be boring to modern audiences.  We have different expectations from the crowd back then.   We go to a concert or opera to listen/view, whereas the eighteenth century leisure classes who frequented their theater boxes five nights a week had plenty else on their minds besides the show onstage: food, card games, gossip, family/clan business, sexual intrigue and activity.  An opera house was the social media platform,  long before Facebook went public. People linked up and hooked up, and they paid attention  to those long, long spectacles onstage when they felt like it.

What pleased me about this televised broadcast was precisely the silliness and superficiality of the presentation. Viewing the three hour long show on the tube was not totally dissimilar from taking in a Neapolitan opera from one’s own box at the theater.  During a slow bit on the screen one could move about, discurse to one’s neighbor, run to the fridge for a snack…now that’s a “historically informed” experience!

Another historical verity made evident again via the telecast is the relatively less-important role of the compositional ingredient in the whole operatic enchilada.  When “Ercole Amante,” with music by Cavalli, was given at Versailles to celebrate the marriage of Louis XIV,  contemporary accounts apparently neglected to mention Cavalli’s specially-commissioned music. What got commented on at the time were the impurgated ballet sequences by court composer Lully (as I recall,  Cavalli, disgusted, went home to Venice,  never to return)

Similarly, during Ms. Voigt’s very, very brief introduction to the telecast, we were told that the music was by Handel, Rameau, and Vivaldi, but nothing more. That’s all folks.  The score is indeed a kludge,  the Handelian preponderance notwithstanding (and yes, there was  an impurgated ballet to French music by Rameau and whomever), and the stylistic contrasts and frequently awkward/ poorly   managed transitions  were jarring at times, assuming one was listening intently. There is apparently a list of pieces and their authors online. I did not look it up.  Did you?   In the true spirit of 18^th century opera, the authorship of the music was treated as a matter of fairly little importance.  Another “historical” moment….

Concerning the performance, much has been written already by other hands. I found one of the best things to be the work from the pit. We know how fine Metropolitan orchestra is from hearing the “straight” productions,  but lo and behold, here,  on modern instruments, was a very pleasant and plausible similacrum of a baroque band, with attacks, phrasing, tempi and other such matters skillfully shaped by William Christie.  Right on, orchestra. The singing was by and large OK of its kind, with only the turn, as Neptune, by tenor-turned-baritone Placido Domingo, in full park-and-bark mode, leaving us truly disappointed. The most moving theatrical moment, in a show not especially aiming to plumb the depths of the human soul, came from Luca Pisaroni as a despairing,  deceived-in-love Caliban.  The real stars of the evening were the stage designer and special-effects mavens.  Everything in that department was utterly charming and seductive….once again, an unhistorical production ends up being “historically informed” on a deeper level.  More naked mermaids, please.

My only consistent frustration was with the English-language verses/lyrics. Yes, they moved the plot along,  and yes, there were clever moments, but how much of it rang flat, unmusical, and tone-deaf! Rumor has it that Metastasio, in heaven, was watching Friday on an old analog TV set, and that he was shaking his head. Same goes for Ira Gershwin.  Consonant, by the way, with the singers’ need to produce a “big” sound in a modern opera house, quite a bit of the text would have been unintelligible without the mercifully-supplied subtitles.

I’ve witnessed,  and enjoyed/learned from, baroque opera productions with the “right” instruments, the “right” costumes and sets, the “right” gestures, et cetera.  This particular pseudo-opera, however, managed to get us back in touch with some of the genuine show-business values of those dear, dead days.  I’m willing to watch it again, if it gets re-broadcast.

Joel Cohen is Artistic Director of Camerata Mediterranea, a nonprofit association incorporated in France, and Music Director Emeritus of The Boston Camerata. He has been a producer and assistant station manager for Radio France in Paris. With WCRB, he produced a syndicated radio series around the Boston Camerata’s music. He has been host of Morning Pro Musica at WGBH and a frequent interviewee on radio stations throughout the US, Europe, and South America.

The program opened with one and closed with another of the nine sections of Igerimaa õhtud (Ingrian Evenings) by Veljo Tormis (born 1930), which the chorus will re-explore next season. The first, “Röntyskälaulu I,” is a joining together in song, with exquisite soprano solos by Rebecca Blum.  Other than its linguistic challenges (it’s in a dialect of Finnish), these songs include vocalized inhalation, used in Ingrian singing. Ingrians are native Finns (this explains the language which resembles Hungarian) who moved back and forth between Finland and nearby Russia. The 20th century — with the German occupation, then Soviet rule — was particularly cruel to them and was reflected movingly in the concert’s last piece. I will make sure I hear the rest of them next season on the Musica Sacra program “Baltic Inspirations” scheduled for March 9, 2013. Tormis was the big discovery for me from this concert.

Draw on, Sweet Night by John Wilbye (1574-1638) sees night as an opportunity to find some “ease from paining.” The ravishing Abendlied by Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901) implores a higher spirit to bide with us; day is drawing to a close. Frank Ticheli (born in 1958) paints night as a time that promises repose in There will be Rest. He colors the word stars “I shall find” by having the phrase sung three times, peacefully.  It brought to mind the “rest” sung several times at the end of John Rutter’s Requiem. This was surely one of the evening’s most beautiful pieces. I keep learning on the job that at choral concerts, it’s often the least known composers who produced the most memorable music.

“There is Sweet Music” from op. 53 no. 1, Four Choral Songs, by Sir Edgar Elgar (1857-1934) was a revelation (although chorus members all seemed familiar with it). Here the singers describe music that brings “sweet sleep down from the blissful skies,” music that “gentlier on the spirit lies,” with the singers starting at different moments. Antiphonal choruses declaim the poem; bass voices and treble voices intone the poem, each in a different key (G major and A-flat major) which produce the kind of disorientation of dreams.

Orlande de Lassus’s (1532-1594) text wins the “Most Unrestful” title, but his music, full of longing, was ravishing:  “Every night that I go to bed without you,/ thinking of you, I lie half asleep/ and dreaming until I awake/ I continually search for you among the bedclothes,/ and all too often, where your mouth would be,/ sighing I kiss the pillow.”

How They So Softly Rest by Healey Willan (1880-1968), to a text by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, had a deeply peaceful sense, the “rest” being in silent graves where, “Until the Angel calls them, they slumber!” Eric Whitacres’s (b. 1970) Sleep, with poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri, ended the first half in a blaze of glory: the poet knows sleep is coming soon. He describes noises and other terrors of the night, and wonders what dreams may come as he surrenders unto sleep. The chorus sounded positively victorious here, with interesting harmonies and high voices singing of what precedes the surrender. It was a great ending to the first half.

Saint-Säens’s (1835-1921) ethereal Calme des Nuits tells of the poet being haunted by the love of quiet things. “Par l’amour des choses tranquilles,” its last line, is repeated several times, slowly, after “Le bruit plaisent aux plus futiles” (noise is pleasant to those more frivolous) sung with gaiety, loudly. “Le bruit” was sung by four voices, one after the other with many moods. The singing was simply lovely throughout.

Brahms’s (1833-1897) “Abendlied” from Vier Quartette, op. 92 was accompanied by pianist Terry Halco. This was the only time an instrument was used during this concert. In this poem, sleep comes to end, if not eradicate, joy and sorrow. “Are you already asleep, Grief, who depressed me?” Finally he finds sleep and like appears to be like a lullaby.  Brahms, no slouch at writing lullabies, ends this as a Schlummerlied, a soporific lullaby.  Music Sacra’s performance made me determined to hear the rest of this quartet.

Caliban’s Song by David Hamilton (born 1955) from The Tempest, Act III, Scene ii featured both ethereal and dramatic singing, with the chorus whispering in the last line, “I cried to dream again.” The sudden variations in tempo, texture and dynamic deftly help portray the befuddlement of Prospero’s servant, living in a world he cannot understand.

My favorite piece on this most varied program was Morten Lauridsen’s (born 1942) Soneto de la Noche, a lovely setting of the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s 89th sonnet, Cien Sonetos de Amor. Mary Beekman explained in her thoughtful and always informative program notes that the title which featured “night” fit the program, so she included it! The poem speaks of a man who hopes to live on in his beloved, “Quiero que vivas mientras yo, dormido, te espero” (I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep.”)  The singing was as achingly beautiful as the text.

The whole choir, especially sopranos Jennifer McLean and Lorraine Fryer, got cameos of three-by-three (usually), singing, as they walked down the aisle, disappearing as they sang the last of nine sections of Veljo Tormis’s poignant Igerimaa õhtud. Tormis wrote of this piece, “It is a farewell song to the whole of Ingermanland… the former population of which has been scattered or assimilated as the result of the two World Wars and … the criminal policy of genocide carried out by the Soviet Union.” The singing was anything but mournful; it was lively and joyful. After the exits of groups of four and five, all singing, only one soprano is left. She sang like a lark, then walked away

Beekman knows how to program, and her chorus knows how to bring the music and the texts to life. Musica Sacra always impresses, surprises, and delights.  To this writer, who has grown up in an instrumental and symphonic world, much choral music remains unknown, yet my ventures into that repertoire, beyond the “Top 10” favorites, have afforded untold delights, especially when the chorus is Musica Sacra.

Susan Miron is a book critic, essayist, and harpist. Her last two CDs featured her transcriptions of keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti.

Cecile Licad (Michael Rocha photo)

Three months ago, the accomplished Filipina pianist Cecile Licad performed Part I of her Chopin/Liszt piano series as part the new Calderwood Hall’s inaugural season at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum [BMInt review here]. On Sunday, May 20, she presented Part II as the final offering of the season in the not-quite-new venue (though it still retains that “Eau du New Hall” essence).

Calderwood Hall’s stage-free ‘theater in the square’ proves an intimate, visually arresting space in which to hear a solo recital. The performer seems particularly exposed, surrounded as she is on all sides, with three tiers of balconies looming overhead. This exposure is auditory as well, with a take-no-prisoners, sharply delineated acoustic. The strikingly austere environment, coupled with Licad’s analytical approach, resulted in an all-Romantic program largely devoid of the traditional trappings of Romanticism.

Chopin’s relatively obscure Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat Major, op. 61 was a case in point. Licad dissected this work with a precise technique, little wasted motion, and light pedaling. Gone was most phrasing, rubato, and gesture, leaving the piece’s underlying musical bone structure clearly visible. Intellectually this was quite enlightening, especially given the harmonic intricacies of this particular work. Licad’s technical prowess is formidable; she plays with power and rock-solid security. This is one performer who was more than up to the scrutiny of Calderwood’s musical microscope.

Unfortunately, this sort of academic approach just didn’t really seem appropriate for either the three Chopin Mazurkas, op. 56, or the Andante spianato et Grande polonaise brillante, op. 22. Licad’s rendition of the Mazurkas was clean, albeit a bit stiff, well played but without any sort of give-and-take or playfulness. The Andante was exquisitely realized, with a pleasingly lyrical tone, though the noble polonaise seemed desiccated by comparison. All told, Licad’s interpretations of these Chopin creations seemed to lack the emotional nuance and refinement generally associated with this composer. Apparently, I was in the minority with my reservations, however, as most of the capacity crowd of some 296 was on its feet at the conclusion of the first half.

After the sublime elegance of Frédéric Chopin, the second half featured the visceral virtuosic bombast of Franz Liszt. His Misère du Trovatore de Verdi, S. 433 started things off with a dramatic flourish. This piece, sometimes referred to as a transcription, is perhaps more accurately described as a musical interpretation of an Act IV duet from Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore. Licad’s direct, robust, and technically accomplished playing seemed much better suited to the pure, unvarnished, unabashed, crash-bang virtuosity of vintage Liszt. This was all the more apparent in the afternoon’s final offering, Après une Lecture de Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata, S. 161/7, a fiendishly difficult work consisting of a single movement lasting some 18 minutes and apparently composed when Liszt was in the throes of some sort of demonic possession. Licad was in her element as she reeled off sheets of eardrum-rattling octave runs, hurtling towards a piano-pulverizing conclusion that left the wooden floor palpably vibrating beneath our feet. An enthusiastic audience reaction yielded a single encore in the form of more Liszt, but of the slightly subdued variety: his hypnotic La Campanella.

Some performances impress more than move; such was the case for this reviewer and this particular recital. Cecile Licad is a phenomenal pianist whose interpretations of the Romantic repertoire are instructively idiosyncratic.

Michael Rocha is a self-described “long-ago” music teacher, a long-time music enthusiast and pianist, and a short-time Web designer: http://www.cobaltocumulus.com.  He has an MS in Meteorology from MIT

Brookline’s United Parish, which hosted last night’s concert, was indeed the perfect venue for a concert that imbued the Mass structure with a musical and spiritual ecumenicism. The church is affiliated with three religious denominations: American Baptist, United Methodist, and United Church of Christ; and in its architecture seems to exist peacefully as a mélange of traditions. Musically, Sungji Hong’s 2002 Missa Lumen de Lumine provided the structural anchor for a program that was as beautifully constructed as it was performed. Each movement of the Missa except the Gloria was followed by a new premiere written in response to the Mass text. Echoes from the past rang throughout the concert in three Byzantine chants by the ninth-century composer Kassia, which worked extremely effectively as Introit, a makeshift Alleluia, and a Communion/Dismissal.

But Lorelei does more than offer inventive programs. There were no weak links in this ensemble. The balance and blend were at times utterly mesmerizing, and the soloists were excellent across the board. What was pleasantly surprising was the variety of vocal timbres within the group and how easily the ensemble seemed to reconcile this when singing together. This exposed the variegated texture of many of the works, especially the Hong Missa. If there was any apparent disjuncture, it was only in some of the stylistic and interpretive choices of the soloists, particularly in the opening work by Kassia, I en polles amarties. Clare McNamara opened the concert with a soulful and authentic cantorial style, and her expressivity was echoed by most of the other soloists. The real challenge of singing chant is navigating the balance of freedom and deliberation. The timbral blend of the ensemble was breathtaking, but there was a slight sense of strain to the more homorhythmic sections.

With the exception of the final Agnus Dei, all the movements of Hong’s Missa were sung by a trio of voices, showcasing the strong talent that makes up Lorelei Ensemble. In the Kyrie, Emily Marvosh’s solid and assertive phrasing connected the piece to the preceding work by Kassia and was a engaging partner with Sonja Tengblad’s angelic dulcet melismas. Joined by Emily Culler, this trio also sang the Sanctus of the Missa, where Culler and Marvosh artfully matched their vocal character across an extremely wide range. The Gloria, sung by Margot Rood, Clare McNamara, and Thea Lobo, demonstrated how well these women listen to each other. Calling upon the highest and lowest of vocal register, the Gloria tested the limits of all three singers, who rose to the occasion. Rood’s brilliant transparency rang through the church, counterbalanced by a rich, but never heavy tone from McNamara and Lobo. The quieter moments of the Gloria were particularly impressive in terms of vocal blend. Hong’s setting of the Credo is conservatively poignant, and the composer in general showed sensitivity to the liturgical and traditional functions of the Mass texts, even in a concert setting. The movement highlighted the vocal agility of contralto Stephanie Kacoyanis in a trio with Rood and Tengblad. The “Amen” of the Credo was one of the most moving and musically stirring moments of the entire evening. The bell-like invocation of the Sanctus called upon centuries of polyphonic tradition, and Culler, Tengblad, and Marvosh seemed to have an artistic awareness of past and present in their sensitive performance. Marvosh, whose stage presence was a joy to behold, offered a tone that had the velvety soulfulness of a cello, or at times a mournful duduk and lent a refreshing pious solemnity to this more joyful of Mass texts. The final Agnus Dei, which featured the entire ensemble including Beth Willer, was absolutely stunning. The unison portions were arresting in their clarity of tone, and the textures of the polyphonic sections were almost visible in their intricacy and exactitude.

Each of the commissioned world premieres was beautifully matched to their corresponding mass movement. Anita Kupriss’s Infinite Mercy troped the idea of “mercy” in the Kyrie, using multilingual textual expressions of the word. The ensemble effortlessly brought forth the intricate counterpoint that was both energized and ethereal. Lorelei’s collective diction was superb and actually contributed to the texture, particularly at the end of the piece where the text evokes a “world infused with gladness, honor, and joy.” Beth Willer’s conducting was masterful yet understated, allowing the skill of her ensemble to take the reins.

Erin Huelskamp’s Love Credo continued the fervor of the preceding religious Credo in its sincere devotion to love. Upon glancing at the words, adapted from an original text by Shannon Rosa, I admit I was skeptical when I read: “…a whole bunch of other cool dudes like Muhammad, Buddha, Martin Luther, George Fox…”. Huelskamp’s score, however, managed to rise above my (perhaps, unfair) associations with that parlance, and skillfully interwove jazz harmonies into an almost micropolyphonic tapestry.

It was Joshua Bornfield’s Farewell (Long Time Travelin’) that was revelatory in its ability to navigate stylistic diversity. According to the composer, it is more of a response to the Catholic Sanctus than an homage: “within this Catholic structure lives an unruly Baptist music, one with great power over the source material as it historically comes from the same place.” While the composer offers this as a “protest,” I felt the work offered a more peaceful reconciliation in its “Sacred Harp” energy meshed with a nostalgic spirituality. The Lorelei Ensemble seemed to relish this work, capitalizing upon opportunities for stylistic variety. Clare McNamara and Margot Rood’s singing, in particular, recalled the roots of gospel without artifice, reminding us that spirituality is infinite in its musical expression. Bornfield’s excellent work extends the American choral tradition of composers like Gail Kubik and Moses Hogan and seems a clarion call for reinvigorating this tradition.

Carson Cooman, who offered little in the way of program notes, wisely decided to let the text by Elizabeth Kirschner speak for itself in his Golden Callings. Cooman’s rich sonorities supported Kirschner’s exquisite text, and the ensemble delivered both a passionate and sensitive performance. In the hands of a less skillful composer, the poem might have elicited trite word painting and compositional rhetoric. But Cooman clearly kept the spirit of the Agnus Dei in mind, and his setting of lines like “The compost in my wounds/ composes me as does the rich/ roux of sorrow that burrows into my soul’s/ creamy marrow” were moving and reflective. Not content to rely upon pretty harmonies, however, Cooman’s rhythmic and vivacious counterpoint in “Within the spun strands, the promise/ of flurrying wings and soon, soon,/my wounds, your wounds and our very/ brokenness will be what awakens us greatly” was spectacular — and beautifully executed by the ensemble.

Part of the mission of Lorelei Ensemble is to expand repertoire for women’s voices, and it is fulfilling this objective with creativity and the highest level of artistry. While the eight-voice women’s ensemble, founded in 2007, is a fairly new member of Boston’s rich choral scene, it is fast becoming a source of some of the most innovative and inventive programming. And in this day of recycled standards and deified “composers of the moment,” attention to the infinite palette of possibilities is laudable. The group will be performing as part of the Monadnock Music Festival in August.

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.