The Baroque Choral Guild presented a light repast of musical hors d’oeuvres and bonbons in a satisfying presentation of early and modern French chansons on Sunday evening, at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley. Inviting the audience into the more informal spirit of a “salon” evening of music, director Mitchell Covington created a pleasingly intimate atmosphere, introducing the various works with engaging commentary. The Guild chorus sang with enthusiasm and, in the full-ensemble numbers, impressive proficiency.

Several selections on the Guild’s program aptly displayed the illustrative character and winking playfulness of this early chanson. The repeated staccato notes in Pierre Passereau’s Il est bel et bon make the music strut and chirp, as two neighbor women both laud their respective husbands and hint at reciprocal cuckoldry. Their hen-like characters are wonderfully depicted in the musical clucking that enlivens the ending. A similarly teasing spirit enlivens Jacquin Jacquet by the noted Clément Janequin. The tongue-twisting opening phrase “Jacquin Jacquet jouait avec Jacquette” (“Jacquin Jacquet was playing with Jacquette”), ribs us with its alliterative punch and the homophonic confusion of “Jacquette,” “jaquette,” and “j’acquette” (which might be translated as “Jackie” “jacket,” and “I get.”).

As a whole ensemble, this chorus of over 50 singers dealt fairly well with the rapid-pace French pronunciation of these early chansons and, more often than not, demonstrated nimble and accurate singing without garbling the lightly polyphonic textures. In one high point of the concert - Janequin’s delightful, intricate Le chant des oyseaux (“The Song of the Birds”) - the chorus enchanted listeners with the well-tuned, articulated twitterings of the king thrush, the starling, the robin, the cuckoo, as well as the more elaborate descant of the nightingale.

Ravel’s Menuet antique, played winningly by pianist Lino Rivera, served as a palette refresher for the second half of the concert, which featured the only a cappella choral works of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. The Guild chorus rose to the challenge of the grittier and unpredictable harmonic language of Debussy’s Trois chansons de Charles d’Orleans (“Three songs of Charles d’Orleans”) and Ravel’s Trois chansons (“Three songs”).

The riper choral sound was a treat and was well suited to Debussy’s effusive Dieu! qu’il la fait bon regarder (“God! How good it is to look at her”), the indolent mood of Quant j’ai ouï le tamborin (“When I heard the little drum”), and the pathos of Ravel’s Trois beaux oiseaux du paradis (“Three beautiful birds of paradise”).

Kristi Brown, San Francisco Classical Voice (12 March 2000)

back to reviews

---

Baroque Choral Guild, 953 Industrial Ave. Ste 118, Palo Alto CA 94303, 650.424.1410

| home | about | concerts | chorus | cantabile |
| workshop | hire us | news | join |