The Northwest Boychoir has just embarked on its latest concert tour, but before leaving Seattle it gave a preview concert Tuesday night for a packed audience at Plymouth Church. The written program included everything the choir would sing while away, each concert having just a selection of these as it did here, one half being sacred music, the other secular.
The Boychoir is a great ambassador for music in Seattle. The quality of the singing is up to the standards of the best English cathedral choirs, not a random observation as the tone is very similar: clear and pure. For the first half, the boys sang, unaccompanied, Mozart’s “Laudate Dominum” and Durufle’s very tricky “Tota pulchra es” with absolute perfect pitch sense. It isn’t easy to be that perfect, particularly when singing with no vibrato. The slightest waver in pitch is instantly noticeable and it did not happen here. Piano accompanist Christina Siemens joined them for Randall Thompson’s “The Place of the Blest,” and in Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater,” of which they sang eight sections.
This was all a delight to the ears musically and the resonant acoustics of Plymouth Church enhanced the boys’ voices. However the acoustics there are death to diction. It was impossible to hear words at any time from two-thirds back in the church, even when conductor and choir director Joseph Crnko announced selections. Since works were not sung in the order given in the program it was sometimes quite a scramble to figure out what was being sung if the music was not familiar.
The same continued in the second half, which ranged from arrangements of folk songs and gospel songs to songs from musicals and even the Beatles. All of the arrangements seemed done with boys’ voices in mind, so that there was a sameness in style no matter what the original was. Thus “When you Wish Upon a Star” had the same feel as “Deep River” or “Home on the Range.” However, all had energy, nuance and dynamics, and the final “America the Beautiful” ended the concert on an uplifted note.
The boys’ demeanor also deserves mention. They stood without fidgeting, their hands by their sides or holding their music books, all the same way, so that nothing distracted from what they were singing. This kind of professional discipline is remarkable in children aged 10 to 14. Crnko deserves great credit for their training in every aspect of performance, as he has done for two generations of boys in the choir.
