Cantabile Review: November 2005 San Francisco Classical Voice

Split Personality/Double Visions

November 20, 2005

Sometimes choirs can be their own doppelganger, as an audience witnessed Sunday night at First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. Cantabile Chorale was literally split into two choruses — the appealing programmatic hook for this "Double Visions" concert was music written for double choirs. But the chorale also gave a performance with two distinct personalities in the first and second halves: one confident, and the other its vocally less-assured counterpart.

As SFCV's own founder and editor emeritus Robert Commanday explained in his erudite and engaging preconcert lecture, double-choir works have a rich history in the reportoire dating back to 15th century Venice. They then spread throughout Italy and Germany during the Baroque period, as the profusion of cantatas and the Saint Matthew Passion from Bach testify. The format allows composers to produce effects, in eight or more parts, in which one choir answers or echoes the other, or amplifies the text underlay or musical line, or blends all of the above. Each of the works on display were indeed double-choir pieces, but the range of possibilities from the genre was wide, spanning Bach's straight-ahead stereophonics to Schumann's intimate pianolike effects to Martin's neoclassical experimentation.

Musical atmospherics

The second half of the performance kicked off with lush sonorities in William Hawley's calmly beautiful and atmospheric Two Motets, composed in 1994 and set to Latin poems from the fourth and first centuries, respectively. But the highlight of the evening was 20th century Swiss composer Frank Martin's Mass for Double Choir, finished in 1926 but performed for the first time only in 1963.

Martin's work is like no mass you've heard. As Commanday explained, the Sanctus, with its holy-roller text full of "holiesî and "hosannas,î here is light, unlike anything in the more traditional settings by Haydn, Mozart, and Bach; the last "dona nobis pacemî (grant us peace) in the Agnus Dei is unusually small and intimate. Musically, its dense chords and fluid modal scales layer together into a complex texture that is both musically pleasing and intellectually satisfying. Psychologically, the mass uplifts the spirits in a simultaneously strange and entrancing way.

In the hands of Cantabile Chorale — the all-volunteer ensemble of skilled amateurs formerly known as the Baroque Choral Guild — Martin's mass was a wonder. Cantabile sang with richness and resonance in the "gratias agimus tibiî (we give you thanks) section of the Gloria. Martin deconstructs the double-choir formula with similar vocal lines singing together across choirs, then alternating in traditional fashion, then coming together again in a more unified way. The Credo skips the usual emphasis on doctrinal purity, moving quickly to a quiet and downplayed "crucifixusî (he was crucified), then more animatedly toward the "et resurrexitî (and he rose again), before ending in something akin to medieval chant in the "amen.î Conductor Sanford Dole coaxed more focused singing out of the initially uncertain sopranos in the Sanctus, leading the entire choir to a secure lyricism. The Agnus Dei at the end was tender and quiet as it resolved from "miserere nobisî (have mercy on us) to "dona nobis pacemî (grant us peace).

Enter Choir Two

If only the entire concert were the same. In the first half, it was like another ensemble took control of Cantabile's choral body. Where was the confident and lyrical performance on display in the second half? The basses were rich and resonant in the four double-chorus songs by Robert Schumann that started the evening, but the rest of the voice parts were often tentative and unsupported. In the Schumann, and in the later pieces by Healey Willan (An Apostrophe to the Heavenly Hosts), Johannes Brahms (Fest- und Gedenksprüche), and J.S. Bach's Komm, Jesu, komm, tuning was sometimes an issue, blend was occasionally imperfect, and balance was a persistent problem, as the sopranos numerically and vocally dominated the 65-person choir. The 12 tenors (half as many when you consider the double-choir division) could frequently not be heard over the 22 sopranos who washed across both sides of the chancel. Overall, the sound was often muddy, diction was unclear, entrances were unsure, and the lines were not well enough articulated and made musical. (And a minor point: Why not separate the choirs by a few feet to demarcate visually the separate groupings?)

Many of these issues could have been the result of preparation. I saw many more heads looking out of the music in the Martin Mass, where I also heard the kind of full-bodied singing that comes from familiarity. The pieces of the first half seemed much less full and secure. It could also have been the general frazzledness that came from having to move from the original venue of First Congregational Church diagonally across the street when the power went out right before the concert. (First Presbyterian deserves a big round of applause for its kindness in opening its doors at the last possible minute.) Whatever the cause, I will gladly hear the Cantabile of the second half again.

(Mickey Butts is the executive director and publisher of San Francisco Classical Voice. In the interests of full disclosure, he sang with the Midsummer Mozart Festival on July 21-24, 2005, when Cantabile, under Sanford Dole, appeared as the guest chorus.)

Cantabile Chorale sings again March 17-19, 2006, in a concert of Renaissance and modern mass settings titled "Mass Transit."

Cantabile Choral Guild
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