The performers of Pacific MusicWorks have been busy this December. Friday night saw the first of two performances by PMW of “Christmas in Rome,” a program of rarely heard 17th- and 18th-century gems led by founder Stephen Stubbs, lute and baroque guitar, with the Pacific MusicWorks Orchestra and five singers, the first at Epiphany Parish Church in Madrona, Sunday’s at Trinity Parish Church near St. James Cathedral.
Friday’s “Christmas in Rome” had as its centerpiece a cantata for Christmas by 17th-century composer (and Don Juan who came to a sticky end) Alessandro Stradella. Quite unlike any other cantata’s libretto, “Ah! che troppo e ver” (“Ah, It is too true”) this one showcases Lucifer’s outrage at the very idea of the birth of Jesus with a full third of the music given to Lucifer and his choir of furies. Surprisingly the libretto was written by Giulio Rospigliosi, who later became pope and had already co-authored a comic opera—clearly a man with a sense of humor!
For this program Stubbs brought from Berlin a renowned bass-baritone, Douglas Williams, and his performance was the highlight of the concert, sending shivers down the spine. The music echoes Lucifer’s anger and rage, and Williams’ authoritative voice made clear Lucifer’s ferocious determination to do all he could to prevent Jesus’ arrival. Stradella makes imaginative use of instrumental colors, such as making the harp (Maxine Eilander) prominent as Lucifer sings about the “unwelcome sound of eternal strings.”
The other four singers became his chorus of Furies to crisp, martial music, and then sang as angels, shepherds and Mary. Of them, Danielle Sampson as Mary sang a finely nuanced aria, while Soprano Tess Altiveros sang a dramatic angel, but the aria for Joseph seemed largely pitched too low for comfort for countertenor Nathan Medley.
Stradella is a composer few of us have even heard of, but this is extraordinary music, rich, powerful, descriptive–and leaves this listener with a strong wish to hear more of his work, which pre-dates towering titans like Handel, Bach, and Vivaldi by half a century.
The Stradella ended the concert, but another early Christmas cantata of joyful music by Marco Marazzolli used both sopranos, plus tenor Thomas Segen. Here, it became noticeable that the acoustics of the church seemed a little problematic. The balance among the singers seemed off-kilter with the sopranos sounding overbearing in their upper register, as though their sound was amplified by the building. At the same time it was equally noticeable that the lowest strings had an unusually rich and prominent resonance, while the central instruments were less easy to hear well. There were a few moments when the violins led by Tekla Cunningham also sounded too heavy in the upper range, something of which this orchestra is never guilty.
Despite this imbalance, the purely orchestral works, Corelli’s Concerto Grosso “Fatto per la Notte di Natale” and Handel’s Concerto Grosso Op.6 No. 5 continued the upbeat feel of the whole concert. The Handel with its unusual beginning of heraldic flurries on the violins one after another, repeated rhythmic patterns full of zest, sedate movements interspersed with lively ones and a perfect storm of musical thrills in the penultimate Presto. A stately Menuet completed the work, a winding down after all the excitement. This fascinating program of music few of us have ever heard is a hallmark of what Pacific MusicWorks unearths and performs, and makes every concert full of compelling interest.
Earlier this month Pacific MusicWorksUnderground presented “A Country (Baroque) Christmas,” such as humbler folk might celebrate, in six less much formal settings with just a few performers, from Whidbey Island to Seattle to Bellevue. And, as if that wasn’t enough, there were two lunchtime concerts, one at the acoustically superb and visually beautiful Christ Our Hope Church at the Josephinum in downtown Seattle, and one in the U-district at Christ Episcopal Church, all with music we have probably never heard before. The quality of the Underground concerts is in no way lesser than the main concerts, just more casual and always a delight to attend. Underground’s annual Christmas program is gathering a cult following, since the carols are accompanied by projections of singularly bad Renaissance paintings of Mary and Jesus, for which PMW’s harpsichordist and Underground leader HenryLebedinsky scours the internet, collecting more each year.
