RSS 2.0 FeedDecember 8, 2010, Classical
Patchwork holiday re-imagined
December is a time when most musical organizations take a breather and focus on lighter holiday fare. The Fine Arts Chorale bucked that trend with best choral programming I have had the good fortune to hear in the past couple of years. Joined by organist Janet Kraybill, the combined forces created a delightful new holiday aesthetic.
December is a time when most musical organizations take a breather and focus on lighter holiday fare. The Fine Arts Chorale bucked that trend with best choral programming I have had the good fortune to hear in the past couple of years. The concept was simple: take a multi-versed melody or chant, find that same tune in other works, shift seamlessly between composers and across time periods on different verses, and end with a coda performed on the organ. Repeat this process four times. In doing so, the Fine Arts Chorale, under the capable direction of Terri Teal with organist Janet Kraybill, treated the robust audience for Saturday night’s performance at Grace and Holy Trinity to a splendid meta-suite of works based on “Lo, How a rose,” “Conditor alme siderum,” “Divinum mysterium,” and “In dulci jubilo.”
The concert opened with a processional: the “Gaudete” from the Piae cantiones of 1582. Teal was gutsy; where most groups will feature their strongest singers for solos, Teal instead highlighted no fewer than eight voices from her ensemble of twenty-four. While not strong individually, the chorale as a whole was a well-oiled machine throughout the first half of the program.
The quodlibet suite pulled verses from works by the likes of Vulpius, Praetorius, Distler, Stanford, Titelouze, and Gesius, to name but a few, as well as household names Brahms and Bach. I found some of the text distracting and in this situation would have preferred the originals to all be sung in the original language instead of English. That was just a personal preference because the cohesion across the work was amazing. It was only the middle sections (those by Bach and Stanford) of the fourth “movement” that contained some scary moments of disconnectedness in the choir. Artistically, I found the third movement—the “Divinum mysterium” one—the most successful and moving. Kraybill’s codas were impeccable from the melting half-steps in Brahms’ Op. 122, No. 8, to the tasteful tremulant in Craig Phillips’ harmonization of “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” to the tongue-in-cheek dissonances of Norman Dello Joio’s “In dulci jubilo.”
After the intermission Kraybill wowed once again with Marcel Dupré’s Variations sur un Noël, Op. 20. The set of ten variations on the French carol “Noël nouvelet” left me shaking my head at Kraybill’s sheer audacity and masterful performance. This was a thorny, challenging work for audience and performer alike and I treasured every nuance-soaked second, especially those in the fourth, fifth, and tenth variations. The lasting, thunderous, whooping applause was deserved.
The Chorale joined Kraybill in the organ loft with works by Herbert Howells, Andrew Carter, Richard Felciano, Leo Nester, and David Willcocks. They were weaker on these selections than those of the first half. Rhythms in the unison line of Howell’s “My Eyes for Beauty Pine” were fuzzy and the men’s pitch dropped in Nester’s arrangement of “Silent Night.” I would have preferred a more pronounced two-against-three rhythmic interplay in Felciano’s “Von Himmel hoch.” The Gloria ending Howell’s Magnificat from Collegium Regale was, well, glorious!
It was refreshing to hear this different take on the traditional holiday concert. The Fine Arts Chorale is fine indeed.
REVIEW:
Fine Arts Chorale with Janet Kraybill
A Holiday Concert
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral
13th and Broadway, Kansas City, MO
For more information, visit http://www.fineartschoralekc.org.
Top Photo: Terri Teal
Editor-in-Chief; Traditional and New Classical Contributor
Lee Hartman holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (D.M.A., M.M.) and the University of Delaware (B.M.). At the University of Delaware, he received a Dean's Scholar position enabling him to pursue an individually designed academic program combining music education and composition. At the University of Missouri-Kansas City he served for three years as the Assistant Director to Musica Nova, the conservatory's new music ensemble, while teaching a variety of composition classes.
In 2007 he was invited to both the Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavík, Iceland and the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China to give lectures and master classes in composition. In the summer of 2009, Hartman served as an orchestra manager for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and Aspen Opera Theater Center for various performances. He serves on the National Executive Committee of the Society of Composers, Inc. as Submissions Coordinator. His primary composition instructors include James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Paul Rudy, John Beall, and Jennifer Margaret Barker. He currently teaches music theory at the University of Central Missouri and general music classes at Park University having previously taught at UD (2007–08) and UMKC (2006–07).
His compositions can be found at http://www.leehartmanmusic.com
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