Reviews

Virginia Chorale: Sing We Nowell
December 9, 2019, Christ & St. Luke's Church
Review by John Campbell

The lovely, Gothic interior with a fine organ was a great space for this Christmas-themed program that included music for Chanukah. Kevin Kwan was organist and Charles Woodward conducted eighteen members of the Virginia Chorale. The program opened with a joyful setting of Psalm 139 and Amos 5:8: Seek Him that maketh the Seven Stars by Jonathan Dove (b. 1959). He captures a sense of grandeur with his sparkling use of high organ registers. The sweet, high voices and bell-like organ accompaniment repeat the brief text many times as the sound blossoms into a stunning meditation that “turns the shadow of death into morning—yea, the darkness shineth as the day, the night is light about me, Alleluia.” The singing was luminous.

Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) was the lead composer for a series of three songs that celebrate the Rose (Jesus) that springs from Mary (Jesus' pure mother). Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (A rose has sprouted). The unison harmonies break into various streams of melody in There is no rose set by Simon Preston (b.1938). A Spotless Rose by Herbert Howells (1892-1983)featured bass John Tyndall with chorus and it was English choral lovely. Wrapping-up this set was Ave Maria set by Franz Biebl (1906-2001). Bass Andrew Lusher opened with “The angel of God visited Mary and she conceived of the Holy Spirit” and the chorus followed with “Hail Mary full of Grace” and the soprano voices soared to the rafters. A more formal address to the Lady followed: ”Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners...now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” Their sound transported us to another world.

Then followed the centerpiece of the program. For Rejoice in the Lamb, Op. 30, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) chose to set extracts of Christopher Smart's (1722-1771) marvellous though extremely strange Jubilate Agno, written when he was confined to an asylum. Fortunately Charles Woodward encouraged the audience to read the text as it was sung. Poet Smart's theme was the worship of God by all things, each in his own way—his cat Jeoffry, the mouse of great personal valor threatened by the cat and even flowers. Looked at with innocent eyes, the whimsy of the text and the superb musical setting, wonderfully sung, made this the most exciting work of the program. Corbin Pinto sang the treble role of the cat, alto Lynn Kotrady the mouse and Christopher Burnett the flowers in very sweet tones. Kevin Kwan's organ ends each section with a musical comment. The full chorus tells of Christ's delivery from his twelve hardships. Then bass Michael Kotrady with chorus tells us the H, K, L, M of God as Holy Spirit, king, love and music. From there, musical instruments are cited with rhyming words that seem related to the sounds the instruments suggest, concluding with “For God the Father Almighty plays upon the HARP of stupendous magnitude and melody.” Perhaps it is a sound that only a mad mystic can hear so that “malignity ceases and the devils themselves are at peace. For this time is perceptible to man by a remarkable stillness and serenity of soul.” In the end I was left feeling great compassion for the poet and all of us on this our life's journey.

Fortunately Chanukah, the first day of winter and Christmas were all clustered together this year. After intermission, three selections celebrating Chanukah were featured. Maoz Tzur (arr. Samuel Adler) is a traditional Chanukah song. Mi Zeh Hidlik (arr. Steve Barnett)is about lighting candles and featured the voice of alto Bonnie Lambert-Baxter who achieved a deep sound of pathos over a dancing rhythm. Bass John Tyndall was featured in Mi Zeh Y'maleil, based on a Sephardic folksong (arr. Joshua R. Jacobson) recounting the history of the Jewish people surviving over the centuries.

Returning to Christmas songs, the Chorale sang The Oxen by Jonathan Rathbone (b. 1957), who led the Swingle Singers for many years. Rathbone used old harmonies to set Thomas Hardy's words: “If someone said on Christmas eve Come; see the oxen kneel I would go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so.” Two arrangements by English composer and choral director David Wilcocks (1919-2015) followed. Sussex Carol captured the joy of the birth on Christmas night. Bass Frank Mitchell was featured in Quelle est cette odeur agréable (What is this pleasant fragrance?). The organ opened and closed the lovely French carol with the women singing the first verse, alternating with the men. It was concluded by Mr. Mitchell's deep bass voice praising the Almighty: “Let universal peace and grace everywhere abound.” O Come, all ye faithful captured the grandeur of the occasion.

The raucous encore was a fun setting of the honking, quacking Twelve Days of Christmas which jollied the audience mightily.

Virginia Chorale's 40th Season Concludes
April 20, 2024 at Galilee Episcopal Church, Virginia Beach
Review by John Campbell

In a program titled Commonwealth Connection, Artistic Director Charles Woodward led twenty-three of the area's most talented vocalists in music with connection by birth, residence or poetry to Virginia.

The dynamic, even ground-breaking Observer in the Magellanic Cloud (2009) by Mason Bates, was introduced by Chuck Woodward and several singers. Bates (b. 1977 , Philadelphia) was raised in Richmond where he attended St. Christopher's School. There his piano teacher Hope Erb conducted his earliest choral compositions. In 2001 Bates relocated to the San Francisco Bay area, taking a PhD in composition (2008) at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at the University of California, Berkeley. Speaking of connections, the encore piece, O Shenandoah (1971) was arranged by Hope Erb's father-in-law, James Erb.

"Magellanic Cloud" was commissioned by the twelve-member male chorus Chanticleer. We were in the audience when the ensemble introduced it in a performance at Sandler Center in May, 2011. Here, the Virginia Chorale, with twice as many voices in a smaller space, the compacted sound had a deep urgency with metronomic ticks, otherworldly vocalise, beeps sung by the women and a contrast of high voices with deeper ones. The text is Maori and translated in the program as "Magellanic Cloud, sacred one, Mounting the heavens, Cause all the new year's growth to flourish."

Bates captures a futuristic snapshot of two distant worlds briefly passing each other in celestial alignment. The scenario: Eons from now a lost satellite floating in space picks up ancient light from Earth's distant past. The robotic observer witnesses Maori tribesmen chanting to a cluster of stars in space (the Magellanic Cloud), evoking power for a bountiful harvest. The singers in harmony, with power gave us an exhilarating experience.

In Collect for the Birth of John the Baptist, waves of sound overlapped, giving us text from a mass composed by world-renowned Scottish opera composer Thea Musgrave (b. 1928), who lived in Norfolk from time to time while married to violinist Peter Mark who was artistic director/conductor of Virginia Opera. Her opera A Christmas Carol was first performed in Norfolk on December 7, 1979. Others followed, including Harriet, A Woman Called Moses (1985), Simon Bolivar (1985) and Mary Queen of Scots (1978). Over time she "forged a mature style capable of rich expressiveness."

For many years Anne Kincaid Luna (1949-2023) sang with Virginia Chorale. In her memory the next selection was Judith Shatin's (b. 1949) Adonai Ro'i (Psalm 23). Sung in Hebrew, it is in a luminous choral recitation. Shatin is a distinguished professor at the University of Virginia. I recalled hearing her work Glyph at Norfolk Chamber Consort in February 2008. For clarinet, string quartet and piano, Glyph "captured the ephemeral quality of sound in our space-time continuum."

I Will Trust in the Lord by Undine Smith Moore (1904-1989) followed. A Virginian by birth, Moore taught at Virginia State College (now University) beginning in 1927 and received the Virginia Governor's award in the Arts in 1985. There was a Carnegie Hall concert devoted to her work in 1988. Her years were filled with teaching and composing, especially choral and song compositions. The Chorale's performance of I Will Trust in the Lord made my heart sing! The featured soloists were Branch Fields, Christopher Burnette and Keaton Whitehurst.

Composer Gregory Spears (b. 1977), who grew up in Virginia Beach, spoke about his setting of The Neighboring Village, telling us the text he set was a one sentence, five-line short story by Franz Kafka, commissioned for the 40th anniversary of the Chorale through the generous support of David and Susan Goode and others. Joining the 23 voices were Bianca Hall and Michael Bjorklund on recorder, first from the balcony and later in the aisle in front of the chancel. The soloists were Kimberly Nickerson, Rebecca Seekatz, Bonnie Lambert-Baxter, Christopher Burnette, Randall Ball and John Irving. By repeating the story three and one-half times, the composer made the point that time and distance can both elongate and shorten subjectively. A trip to a nearby village may take a lifetime.

A bell was rung to signal when each telling had ended. The vines of sound grew and entwined. In the third telling bass and tenor recorders accompanied the slower telling of the tale. The drum sounded louder and lethargic. This telling trailed off halfway through and ended in mid-sentence! Perhaps the key to understanding the work: Jeffrey Spears says sentences can demonstrate mysteries of life through their structures as well as the words. I would add: also through the way they are set to music.

After intermission we traveled back in time almost seventy years to hear American composer Randall Thompson's (1899-1984) setting, originally for chorus and orchestra (1957), of a text by poet Michael Drayton written in 1606. The poet's goal in Ode to the Virginian Voyage was to sell people on a "cruise" to the new world. The following year three English ships brought the settlers to Jamestown and the rest is history. Drayton's text is a fantasy of merry gales that will stretch the sails and you need not fear, you'll get to the shore and find pearls and gold, fish and rich soil, cedars and cypress trees and sassafras. A Golden Age of everything lovely!

Dr. Stephen Coxe at the piano played a long introduction sounding out the imperial energy of the American empire after WWII was won and before we had the challenge of civil rights, women's rights or the complexity that grew out of prosperity.

The singing was wonderful with great outbursts on the line "Go and subdue!" with grand choral layered exuberance. Of Thompson it is said his works fell in two distinct categories, some with national character of an indigenous composer and others eclectic. This piece was American music 67 years ago. His music offers an economy and simplicity and a nobility of expression. In 1942 Thompson gained a large audience for "The Testament of Freedom" using text by Thomas Jefferson. Following the same pattern, he again used chorus in unison and divided part writing with the directness of anthem.In Ode the women sang tenderly of the bounty of the land and later the men extolled Virginia as earth's one paradise. Set originally for orchestra, Coxe's playing of the piano reduction captured the majestic and regal intent.