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Last Sunday, the stained glass of Kansas City 's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception provided the backdrop to Musica Vocale's Surprised by the Expected. In its 2^nd season, and drawing on talent from the area's many musical disciplines, Dr. Arnold Epley's chorus and orchestra performed works of Henry Purcell, J.S. Bach, Charles Villiers Stanford, Philip Moore and Dominick Argento.

Readers may be familiar with the whimsical story of the mathematician who stands immersed in ice-cold water up to his waist with his upper body simultaneously exposed inside a sweltering sauna. "On average," he quips, "I'm quite comfortable." I have been unable to shake that awkward analogy:  the first half of this concert was a complete mess, while the second half was, in parts, so impressive that I was forced to consider - despite overwhelming visual evidence to the contrary - whether an entirely different ensemble had returned after intermission.

Henry Purcell's Te Deum Laudamus and Jubilate Deo opened the program. Each had similar issues with brass pitch (trumpets in Te Deum and horns in Jubilate) - although nerves may have played a role there - and the violins were occasionally discordant. The chorus as a whole revealed the women to be weaker than the men, especially in timing and diction (the latter being especially noticeable given that the English text was difficult to understand). Jay Carter's countertenor solo provided a breath of fresh air with his crisply defined pitch, diction, breathing and phrasing.

Bach's Mass in F minor (BWV 233) followed. The opening Kyrie was plodding, with little energy, and the brass still flirted with pitch problems. The Gloria started with good momentum, but the nuanced string lines were inconsistent and quickly gave way to pitch struggles moving into the Domine Deus. Seeming to sense the piece needed redemption, Jay Carter's crystalline countertenor again came to the rescue for the Quoniaum tu solus sanctus, but the piece fizzled to the Cum sancto Spiritu, its final "Amen" conveying more a sense of relief than veneration.

Against all odds, the Cathedral at intermission proved to be no better place on earth for the musical resurrection that was about to occur. If the first half represented the chorus's Via Dolorosa, the 2^nd half could only be viewed as the musical equivalent of its ascension to Heaven, during which I had one, singular thought:  "Who are these people, and what have they done with the group that was here during the first half?"

Intermission thus gave way to Charles Villiers Stanford's Three Motets (Op. 38). Justorum animae was nothing short of angelic. While generally not an "emotional" concertgoer, I felt a distinct chill and lump in my throat at the starkly contrasting beauty displayed in the piece's vocal execution. I carefully examined whether it was simply that stark contrast - the comparison to the first half - that made the piece seem relatively spectacular when in fact it was just...better. But it was evident that the performance was standing solidly on its own. The men and women had intermingled, giving the piece a tighter tonality that added to its beautiful cohesion, and I noticed only after the concert that I had scribbled into the margin of the Justorum the single word: "Wow!" It was the standout piece of the evening, and well worth sitting through the first half. Coelos ascendit hodie and Beati quorum via ­followed - both nearly as impressive as the first - but I was disappointed to see that the chorus returned to a traditional Soprano-Alto-Tenor-Bass ("SATB") setting and I couldn't help wonder if that alone took the "angelic" edge off of their presentations.

Philip Moore's Three Prayers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer followed. Moore was born in 1943 and this work moved the program well into the 20^th century and the alternation between dissonance, consonance and resolution clearly demarcated the timeline. Alto incantations at the beginning and end of Morning Prayers harkened back to medieval chant, distinguishable as modern only by the dissonances that followed. The first two Prayers differed noticeably from the third in that they were clearly "20^th-century" in their tonalities, and in many instances the much longer (compared to the third) presentations allowed more comparative personalities to emerge: wherein I found myself reflecting on vocal works of both Britten (especially his "Five Flower Songs") and Vaughan Williams. The final - Evening Prayers - brought the program full circle with noticeably "early music" chant themes that were at once modern and ancient, filled with the solemnity that one might hear in Gregorian melodies. The closing "I commend my body and soul, O God, Thy holy Name be praised" delivered its power through sparse voicing and a subdued, unison cadence.

The closing work of the afternoon - Dominick Argento's Gloria, from "The Masque of Angels" - proved an unsettling finish. Bombastic and showy, it was hard to imagine it fitting well anywhere in the program and it was a peculiar choice as the last impression to leave the audience. The raucous pipe organ introduction left me with one indelible impression:  Lloyd Webber's Phantom. Don't get me wrong. I love Phantom but would have advised against programming it in the same manner as Epley chose to present Argento's Gloria.

It took the program in its entirety for me to to sort out the likely causes for the unbalanced performance. Where there was instrumental accompaniment or where the vocal work called for faster, more flourished technique, the chorus was much weaker. On the other hand, in a capella settings that required longer, slower, more fluid vocal lines, Musica Vocale was impressive. It was in those latter areas that Dr. Epley revealed his interpretive strengths and I came away encouraged that with rehearsals focused on those weaker areas this ensemble is more than capable of stepping up its game.

REVIEW:
Musica Vocale
Surprised by the Expected: Works of Purcell, Bach, Stanford, Moore and Argento
November 15, 2009
The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
416 West 12^th Street , Kansas City , MO
For more information visit www.musicavocale.org

By Christopher Guerin

Traditional and New Classical music, and Theatre Contributor (Past writer)
Christopher Guerin holds degrees in Music Education, Music Business, and Music Theory & Composition, the latter from the University of Massachusetts (Lowell) College of Music where he co-founded the college's Composers' Guild, and, in 1985, won the Artin Arslanian Composition Award. During college, he also obtained some musical theatre experience as a member of pit orchestras for Threepenny Opera and My Fair Lady. Since 1989, Christopher has been in the very non-artistic corporate sector, where his creative energies have been put to more mundane endeavors 

Christopher credits his musical motivations to his late father, who was concertmaster of the Springfield (MA) Community (pre-cursor to the city's current Symphony) Orchestra and performed popular music on radio in the 1930s. Christopher began his classical training in 1972 at age 10, began teaching at 16 (continuing to take private students throughout college), and traveled extensively with a youth orchestra - including to New Zealand in 1980. After college, and until 1989, Christopher focused on the business end of music as a successful sales manager for one of New England's largest music chains.

Over the past 20 years, Christopher's expertise has focused on medicine as a life risk underwriting officer for a large Midwest insurance group. His past duties included responsibility for risk underwriting in Pacific Rim markets where he traveled extensively to Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand and Burma. Time permitting, he has continued to compose intermittently throughout this period. Christopher is married to Paula, a fellow musician he met during college, and together they have "composed" their magnum opera in three very creative children - an architecture student (go K-State!), an aspiring classical pianist, and a budding writer/journalist. He and his wife relocated from Massachusetts to the Kansas City area in 1997.