skip to main |
skip to sidebar
This afternoon David and I heard the Chicago Chorale perform Bach's St. Matthew Passion. The performance was at Rockefeller Chapel at Chicago University, just down the road from our condo.The Chorale has a very good sound and the soloists had various measures of success in their performances.
Steven Soph
Stephen Soph was a wonderful Evangelist, singing beautifully throughout the recitatives as well as the tenor arias. Not many Evangelists can do the arias as well as he did them.
Gerard Sundberg
Equally good was the Jesus of Gerard Sundberg, singing with a rich free sound throughout. Both he and Soph sang as if they were living the text.
Angela Young Smucker
Mezzo-soprano Angela Young Smucker sang with beautiful tone and rich phrasing.
Ellen Hargis
The soprano, Ellen Hargis, was the most problematic of the soloists, having a lovely upper register and practically nothing in the middle voice. Someday I may write a book on finding the middle voice for sopranos....Oh. that's right, I already did that. *
Bruce Tammen
The bass soloist was Ryan De Ryke, who sang with a vibrant voice. He needs to learn how to go from his upper range into his lower range.
Ryan De Ryke
The conductor, Bruce Tammen, is a puzzle to me. He prepares a wonderful chorus but conducts in a way that makes me wonder what he is thinking. He seems to favor heavy downbeats, whatever else is going on musically. Part of the problem today was that he stood behind a very high music stand which blocked most of his movement from the chorus and orchestra.
It is a wonderful work which I have performed and was a bit disappointed in today's performance.
* Sing On! Sing On! EC Schirmer, Boston, MA.
This afternoon David and I attended an Advent Vespers service at the Monastery of the Holy Cross. We actually thought it was going to be a concert by the Chicago Chorale, and they were represented by a group of 12 singers who sang very well in a few pieces. They were basically appearing as the church choir.
Most of the singing, however, was performed by the monks of the Abbey. They performed the service, singing plainchant in Latin. I had thought that after Vatican II, most English speaking Catholic churches used English for the services. However...
The monks sang very nicely, processing with incense, wandering all about the church.
Tomas Luis de Victoria
The small group from the Chicago Choral, about 6 men and 6 women, sang very well choral music of Tomas Luis de Victoria. The conductor is Bruce Tammen. Mr. Tammen has an unusual technique of conducting this type of music. Everything is a downbeat.
All in all it was an interesting experience.
Chicago is apparently a hotbed of good choral singers and good choruses. This afternoon David and I heard the Chicago Chorale, under the direction of Bruce Tammen, perform a glorious program of music by Rheinberger, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Bruckner in Rockefeller Chapel at Chicago University, just down the street from our condo.
This choral group has a sweet and well-blended sound but can rise to the occasion when brilliant volume is needed.
The concert opened with Abendlied by Josef Rheinberger, a lovely work I had never heard. This was followed by Brahms's Es ist das Heil uns kommen her, and Mendelssohn's Herr, nun lassest du deinen Diener in Frieden fahren.
The last piece in the first half was Bruckner's sublime Os Justi. This is a work I used to perform with my choir at the Methodist Church in Red Bank, NJ in my days as a choir director and organist. It brought back fond memories.
The second half of the program was Bruckner's Mass in E Minor, a marvelous work which was also new to me. It was accompanied by an orchestra of clarinets, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets, and trombones. It is essentially an a capella piece with the instruments entering as choir voices, rather than the typical accompanied choral work. The result was magical.
Mr. Tammen certainly knows his choral stuff! Wonderful sound, musical interpretation, and beautiful accuracy. My one quibble would be several entrances that were a bit sloppy, but that is neither here nor there.
We were delighted to hear this marvelous program sung by this wonderful choir and played by these fine instrumentalists.
Bravi!
PS A police shoot out delayed the start of the concert and several of the musicians were late arriving. The suspect, a murderer, was captured at 9:00 p.m. last night.
