For this year’s installment of Renaissance Voices’ annual Christmas program, on Saturday evening at St. Luke’s Cathedral, conductor Harold Stover pivoted deftly between works from the era for which the choir was named and 21st-century pieces, with a dollop of 19th-century lushness at the end.
Contemporary choral writing often seems designed to confound expectations. Composers have the option of experimenting and sounding thoroughly up to date, of course; but choral writing also appears to give them a license to dwell in past eras with impunity, an option they generally don’t have when they write for instruments.
The first of the program’s four new works, Carlotta Ferrari’s “Creator Alme Siderum” for women’s voices, is an easygoing but richly contrapuntal setting that could nearly pass as a piece of Renaissance polyphony (although without the complexity of the two Palestrina works – “Exultate Deo” and “Deus tu Convertens” – that preceded it on the program).
Patricia Van Ness also veers toward a Renaissance sensibility in her setting of Psalm 23. But she used a radical version of the text – not simply a translation, but a reworking. Some of that has to do with gender: References to God as “He” are changed to “You,” which is understandable and does no real violence to the text, although it alters it from a third person testimony to direct address (and ignores the fact that the first word of the Hebrew text is God’s name, usually translated in this psalm as “The Lord,” but given here as “You.”)
Composers who set the psalms often select the lines that interest them and bypass others, but Psalm 23 is so brief that it is usually set intact. Van Ness’ version eliminates some crucial imagery: There is no restoration of the soul or guidance down straight paths, no comforting rod and staff, and no setting tables among enemies, anointing or overrunning cups.
All this was puzzling, given that Van Ness’ Psalm 23 is part of a project in which she is setting all 150 psalms. Hardly anyone would argue that authors’ works should be open to revision and reconfiguration according to the sensibilities of future eras; why doesn’t the Psalmist (the Biblical attribution is to King David) deserve the same respect? And if you don’t like what the psalms actually say, why bother setting them?
Tom Mueller’s “The Shepherds Sing” is a more overtly contemporary score, harmonized with the light, almost jazzy dissonances that often give modern choral works a distinctive shimmer. Its text is a 17th century poem by George Herbert, and Mueller responds to its imagery – part pastoral description, part spiritual hopefulness – with a natural-sounding clarity and fluidity.
Stover also presented the premiere of his own “For Christmas Day.” Like Mueller, Stover was drawn to the 17th century for his text, a poem by Bishop Joseph Hall. And also in common with Mueller, his setting, though conservatively consonant and contrapuntal, is not bound by the structural rules of past eras: His shapely musical lines follow the impulses of the text, and illuminate it beautifully.
The program began with a pair of Palestrina works, the bright “Exsultate Deo” and the more contemplative “Deus tu Convertens.” In both, and in Francesco Soriano’s “Ave Regina Coelorum” and Andrea Gabrieli’s gentler “Angelus ad Pastores Ait,” the choir produced a beautifully blended, smooth tone, and sang with the same dynamic suppleness they brought to the contemporary works.
Stover closed the program with two motets by the late 19th century composer Josef Rheinberger, part of a survey of Rheinberger’s work that the choir embarked on last year. Rheinberger is not frequently performed these days, but Stover and his choir make a strong case for him, bringing out the almost operatic sense of character and drama in “Ad Te Levavi” and reveling in the energy and bright, open harmonization of “Qui sedes.”
As in past years, readings of seasonal texts, secular and sacred, were interspersed between the pieces, and a few of them – William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” recited by Bernie Horowitz, and E.B. White’s amusing “Christmas Wishes,” presented by Woody Howard and Steve Ryan – seemed more timeless than ever in today’s fractured world.
Allan Kozinn is a former music critic and culture writer for The New York Times who lives in Portland. He can be contacted at:
allankozinn@gmail.com
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