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Holiday Tradition with an Intellectual Edge Chicago
Harris Theatre
12/11/2008 - & December 13 (Barrington), 14 (Lisle), 2008
Britten: A Hymn to the Virgin
Hatfield: Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle
Warland: Coventry Carol
Howells: Long, Long, Ago
Paulus: Evensong
Pygott: Quid Petis O Fili
Philips: O Beatum et Sacrosanctum Diem
Siegfried: There Is No Rose
White: Adam Lay Ybounden
Herbolsheimer: Silent Night
Paynter: The Rose
Pärt: Magnificat
Hassler: Verbum Caro Factum Est
Orlando di Lasso: Omnes de Saba
Rautavaara: Marjattan Joulovirsi
Penderecki: Izhe Xeruvimy
Raselius: Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland
Byrd: Ave Regina Coelorum
Rutter: I wonder as I Wander – There is a Flower
Sametz: Gaudete
Bella Voce, Andrew Lewis (Conductor and Artistic Director)
Let me be perfectly clear about this: I love popular Christmas music, and I have the play lists in my iPod to prove it. But sometimes one wants to take a break from Andy Williams, Bert Kaempfert, and the Jingle Dogs, and hear some serious holiday music that challenges the mind as well as caresses the ear. Bella Voce, Chicago’s mellifluous 26-voice a cappella choir under the vibrant direction of Andrew Lewis, proved exactly the answer to a cranky Christmas-music connoisseur’s dream with Among the Stars that Glisten, an evening of choral music spanning five centuries, sung in as many again languages – and all as smoothly satisfying as hot-buttered rum on a cold December night.
Given the ensemble’s impressive track record with Benjamin Britten, his Hymn to the Virgin made for a well chosen and deftly-rendered choice as a curtain opener. The more nostalgically-oriented however, undoubtedly felt most richly served by an offering of no less than five traditional holiday carols in a variety of settings ranging from the reassuringly straightforward to those with just a bit of a contemporary twist. Among the former was Dale Warland’s lovely arrangement of the Coventry Carol, a respectful treatment of this poignant lullaby which largely preserves its familiar melody as passed down for centuries; albeit with just enough subtle tweaking of harmony and rhythm to avoid marbelization. Stephen Hatfield’s take on the perennial Bring a Torch, Jeannette Isabella - buoyantly delivered in the original French - an affectionate setting of I Wonder as I Wander by John Rutter, and Herbolsheimer’s Silent Night (a lavishly expansive treatment that provided an excellent showcase for the ensemble’s prodigious breath control in long, arching lines) all presaged one of the evening’s showpieces – Gaudete taken from Two Medieval Lyrics by Steven Sametz. Originally commissioned by Chanticleer, Sametz’s invigorating arrangement alternates the carol’s original refrain with contrasting sections of his own melodic invention, involving creatively-rendered metric turns that lend the piece a delightful sense of propulsion that proved a joy for the audience, and clearly for the singers as well.
Bella Voce’s repertoire is largely grounded in choral offerings of the Tudor period and early Renaissance; a notable variety of offerings by Phillips, Raselius and Pygott displayed the choir’s early music credentials gracefully and well, William Byrd’s Ave Regina Coelorum possibly the most beautifully shaped of the collection.
Ultimately however, the assemblage fielded its most evocative work in the 20th-century repertory which provides opportunity for technical display as filtered through a modern consciousness. A setting of Evensong by Stephen Paulus was representative; the piece’s intentional dissonance, which gracefully morphs into an aural fabric of gentle tranquility, proved most affecting. Most impressive of all however, was The Rose, by John Paynter. As stated by the composer in the program, “The gradual unfolding of the music symbolizes the opening of the rose, and its closing during the final stanza… the music does try to suggest a suspension of time, such as one has with the opening of a flower; it grows yet it does not appear to move.” An ethereal "suspension of time" is in fact exactly what the piece accomplished, by utilizing extended passages in which each voice is allowed to improvise as appropriate to its particular quality, provided the excursions remain with the structure of a G chord. It was exquisitely done, and found the choir deftly spinning an enveloping canopy of glittering translucency about the space.
Joy Wade, Natalie Warden, Garrett Johannsen, and Michael Brown achieved a lovely blend in the quartet writing of the opening Britten piece, as well as in Pygott’s Quid Petis O Fill. Gina McStraw’s crystalline soprano particularly impressed among the individual contributions with the solo passages in Rutter’s There is a Flower.
Conductor Andrew Lewis provided expert musical leadership, and was a genial presence with his informative bits of patter. The group looked terrific on the Harris stage; no designer was credited, but a soft halo of lighting, complemented by a projected suggestion of twining branches and twinkling stars, ensured that proceedings were seductive visually as well as melodically. All in all, a soul-warming holiday encounter that provided a festive surfeit of aural pleasure – and much to exercise the brain as well.
Mark Thomas Ketterson
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