Choral Arts’ praise of Mary

Richard Sparks would be proud of the choir he formed and nurtured. Since 2007, Choral Arts has continued to bloom under the direction of Robert Bode, winning several prestigious prizes over the past three years. Saturday night it displayed its excellence in a program of works of chants and songs in praise of the Virgin Mary.

Fifteen songs spanned the 16^th century to today, from Palestrina and Hans Leo Hassler to contemporary works with four composers present, three of whose works were written on commission from the choir. The three instances of chant could have been from much earlier.

The twenty-seven singers are close knit and uniform in tone quality, using little vibrato in this program. The sopranos sounded as clear as choirboys in a British cathedral, so that the harmonies in the pleasantly resonant acoustics of St. Joseph Parish Church on Capitol Hill were true to the composers’ intent.

There were many highlights, but perhaps the heart of the program came with the premiere of John David Earnest’s “Vergine Bella.” This gorgeous work caught up the listener from the start, the choir softly singing the first phrases in English on one note, while guest tenor Ross Hauck came in soaring above them in a beautiful melody, singing unseen and in Latin. The words were from Petrarch, the basis of the work taken from a setting of the same words by 14^th century composer Guillaume Dufay.

Earnest, the choir’s composer-in-residence, came from New York for this. Present also were composers John Muehleisen, Rick Asher, and Melinda Bargreen.

In the program, Bode grouped more than one work with the same title together, and others he spread out. He placed Muehleisen’s “Alma Redemptoris Mater” beside the same words set by Palestrina, which could be considered daunting to today’s composer, but Muehleisen, well known to choir-going Seattleites, created a fine piece which is almost a prayer, ending on a soft high note.

Asher’s “Behold the Handmaid,” in its premiere, had as text a poem by Bode. Centered around Mary’s emotions and realizations of her role, from receiving Love to surrendering it, it was ably mirrored by Asher in the music.

I don’t review my friends and colleagues, so suffice it to say Bargreen’s fine “Stella Splendens,” a Seattle premiere, was a worthy addition to the program.

Of the remainder, it’s hard to single out one over another of the many musical gems gathered by Bode, from a 17-year-old Benjamin Britten’s “Hymn to the Virgin,” to Arvo Pärt’s “Magnificat,” to Grieg’s and his compatriot Trond Kverno’s “Ave Maris Stella,” to Schubert’s and Mendelssohn’s “Ave Maria,” both these latter sung by Hauck.

British composer Giles Swayne struck a different note with his “Magnificat,” in which he used rhythms and sounds of a Senegalese working song at both start and finish, its energetic rhythm conjuring up active people singing praises as they moved.

The one less-than-great area of the choir’s singing came in their rendering of chant. The music for chant is often repetitive with a simple melody, frequently with much of the phrase on one note. Its richness and expressiveness come from the music being sung freely according to the flow of the words, the dynamics following the words’ emphasis as well. Choral Arts’ chant sounded pedestrian, the rhythm plodding, the accenting the same throughout. This presumably was Bode’s choice, but it was less than successful in imparting the meaning of the words. Otherwise, the concert was an absorbing delight from beginning to end.

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