Choral conductors know that there is an abundance of fine music
being composed for choirs nowadays, much of it within the range
of competent amateur groups. Three composers named almost at
random – Javier Busto, Bob Chilcott, Morten Lauridsen – produce
works which, whilst being very individual, have in common the
unmistakeable sound of contemporary music combined with real
musical sensibility and originality. Most important of all,
though, their mastery of choral writing ensures that their pieces
work and sound well when sung. This disc gathers together a
collection of works receiving their first recordings and sung
by the excellent William Ferris Chorale from Chicago. All
are written to sacred texts, and liturgical music is clearly
an important part of the life of the group. Apart from Hovhaness
and Easley Blackwood, of whose music I know not a single note,
and George Rochberg, whom I know only from a challenging disc
of symphonies on Naxos, even the names of the composers here were new to me.
Admirers
of Alan Hovhaness tend to be quite vociferous, so I
hope his symphonies are more inspired and convincing than
these four motets, his Op. 268, no less. For music composed
in 1973 the language is conservative, which is not a problem
at all if the ideas are original and memorable. Unfortunately,
I can’t say this is the case here. The composer relies on
repeating words as a way of bringing out the meaning of the
text. Thus, in the first motet, which is set to a single sentence
from Jeremiah, the word “Blessed” is repeated over and over
again, and the same technique is used elsewhere to frankly
irritating effect. A few surprisingly chromatic chords are
seemingly thrown in to vary the harmonic language, and what
little contrapuntal writing occurs is academic and lame. If
all that weren’t enough, the choral writing itself simply
does not sound. One feels that the notes could have
been given to a different kind of ensemble altogether with
neither loss nor benefit.
The distribution
of the voices in Egon Cohen’s Stabat Mater make it
sound like choral music in a way Hovhaness’s motets don’t.
The language here is more adventurous, though the only thing
likely to frighten the horses – or the Chicago public – is
a strangely dissonant pair of “Amens”. I’m not sure the composer
has found quite the right music for this profoundly sad text,
sung here in English, but his piece is interesting and affecting
for all that.
Paul Nicholson
is the choir’s accompanist and there are many lovely moments
in his short piece, all the more pleasing because the music
has clearly been conceived with a choir in mind. He is concerned,
too, to bring out the meaning of the text, and the fact that
the work is almost exclusively homophonic is only a problem
because so little of the programme up to now has exploited
the fact that a choir is made up of several voices and giving
them different things to sing at different times is one way
of creating variety.
Paul French
is the conductor of the William Ferris Chorale, and with his
piece Who Am I? the pattern emerging in this collection
becomes established. Largely homophonic, the music is tonal
with a scattering of chromatic notes and surprising chords,
not always discernibly prompted by the text, and so, one fears,
employed mainly to preclude any accusation of living in the
past. The words are by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a dissident imprisoned
and executed by the Nazis, and explores the feelings provoked
by his incarceration. The music gamely follows these sentiments,
right up until the final line in which the writer suddenly
affirms his faith in God, to music which suddenly shifts into
harmonies of super-rich, cloying sweetness.
The booklet
notes praise Easley Blackwood’s abilities as a teacher of
composition at the University of Chicago and as a pianist
noted for his interpretations of composers such as Ives and
Boulez. His own works exist in a number of styles “including
atonal and microtonal composition”, but he chose to write
A King James Magnificat in “tonal, triadic harmony,
with touches of jubilant polyphonic inspiration from Handel
and from Bach, who wrote perhaps the most famous of all Magnificats.”
Oh dear, what can I say about this piece? If a student had
presented it as an exercise in composition using tonal harmony,
I think the teacher might have suggested another go at it.
This music sounds commonplace to my ears. The lines “He hath
holpen his servant Israel” are sung over a repeated, rhythmically
chanted “Israel, O Israel” in the men’s parts which I’m ashamed
to say put me in mind of a kind of rubbishy pastiche of American
Indian music. Then the doxology begins with the last of several
pale imitations of baroque imitative counterpoint. Blackwood’s
reputation and obvious credentials are such that I must keep
trying with this piece, or at least seek out others by him
in the hope of finding something more convincing.
Robert Kreutz’s
tiny piece follows the same homophonic, tonal trend as the
others in this programme, but his harmonies are more varied
and original and I was left wishing there was more music by
this “noted composer of music for the Roman Catholic Church”
on the disc.
William Ferris
was the founder of the Chorale. The booklet refers to him
as “a distinguished composer as well as a church musician”,
and he was clearly an admired figure locally. His three motets
fit into the now established pattern but, like Kreutz, he
seems to have been blessed with a refined ear and a richer
aural imagination than some of his colleagues represented
here. Feelings occasionally run high in these motets, and
this is conveyed by real harmonic intensity. These are pieces
that one will come back to, and could even imagine wanting
to recommend to choirs on this side of the Atlantic.
By including
the complete passage from St. Luke, that is before and after
Simeon’s famous words, William C. White contrives to make
a Nunc Dimittis that lasts over eight minutes. He also
uses the other tool at his disposal, repeating words, but
this tricky technique seems particularly redundant here. Near
the end, the words “and said unto Mary” are repeated four
times with an additional “unto Mary” for good measure. Now
we know that repeating text is not in itself an unforgiveable
vice. If nothing was repeated Handel’s Messiah would
be over and done with in half an hour. But there must be a
musical or a dramatic reason to repeat words, and all too
often this is not the case here. There are some lovely sounds
in this six-part piece nonetheless, and the idea of framing
the Nunc Dimittis words by using the whole Bible story
is such a good one that I’m surprised I’ve never come across
it before.
The text of
George Rochberg’s piece combines words from Isaiah and from
Psalm 148, with a single line by William Blake which is used
as a kind of refrain. It is quite a dramatic work featuring
some solo voices, notably a pure-toned soprano, Kathryn McClure.
There is a fair amount of word repetition in this piece too,
but Rochberg seems to have a better idea of the reasons for
doing it and executes it with altogether more skill than the
majority of his bedfellows. The language is the most adventurous
on the disc, but even here, so the notes tell us, the work
comes from that part of his career where he decided to reject
serial composition in favour of neo-Romanticism. One feels
this suits the choir’s purpose very well.
In the first
part of Ferris’s Lyrica Sacra, he sets, in Latin, the
same text as did Vaughan Williams in his tiny motet O Taste
and See. Curiously, it provokes from Ferris some of the
most highly charged writing on the whole disc, whereas Vaughan
Williams’ piece is little more than a series of simple, diatonic
imitative entries, a technique, in other words, that I have
been citing as weakness in this programme. Well, that’s the
mystery of music for you, and I can’t even begin to explain
why Vaughan Williams’ exquisite piece is a masterpiece in
miniature whereas none of the works included on this disc
comes even close. To finish, though, I would like to recommend
that anyone interested in what a first-rate composer, and
a devout one at that, can do with sacred texts without straying
very far from simple tonality, should listen to Duruflé’s
Four Motets on Gregorian Themes.
William Hedley
see also Review
by John Quinn
William Ferris
Chorale/Paul French
