There is an almost sensual bliss to be found in hearing a pitch-perfect chord held by a chorus of unaccompanied voices. It’s not so easy to accomplish, involving every singer listening to every other, tuning themselves in, cutting down or out any vibrato that can skew the harmony. And it needs a conductor who can stand back and massage the sound until it is flawless.
Choral Arts Northwest achieved chord after chord like this, lingering on each final note of the works it performed last Friday night in its “A Rose in Winter” concert.
I found myself mulling over what makes a choir sound as good as this one, and how it is attained. It involves, first and foremost, a choir director with the experience of Richard Sparks. Sparks began Choral Arts six years ago, but had previously directed the Seattle Symphony Chorus, and several other choirs over three decades or so.
Choral Arts Northwest
Plymouth Congregational Church
February 19
Ears as keen as Sparks’ are also essential. Put the experience and the ears together, and you have someone who can pick singers with the potential of becoming one blended choral voice; who can analyze differences and show how to eliminate them, and can build the kind of vocal quality he sets as his standard.
The balance between sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses requires harmony, too, so that no one register dominates. In this case, they all are strong. Another pleasure of Choral Arts is that balance among its 29 voices. Interweaving lines are of equal weight. Then there is the importance of being able to hear the words. Plymouth Congregational Church is notorious for blurring speech, yet from my seat in the middle of the church, I could hear most of them.
Sparks chose two early works: Die mit Tr䮥n s䥮 by Johann Hermann Schein, Bach’s predecessor a century earlier at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig; and one from Johann Kuhnau, Bach’s immediate predecessor there, Tristis est anima mea. Both are splendid, satisfying anthems, the Schein astonishing for its date with its unexpected chromaticisms and key changes, the Kuhnau moving and tender. Choral Arts’ clean timbre suited the music, and its precise singing allowed the listener to hear all sorts of felicitous detail.
The warm, smooth blend of voices was impossible not to notice throughout, as for instance in the modern madrigals, written to Renaissance texts, of Morten Lauridsen. Five of them, all incorporating the word “fire,” made a strong series from an original voice with fresh ideas, often with rich, unresolved harmonies. Composer Cindy McTee, once a Pacific Lutheran University undergraduate, and later a student of Krzysztof Penderecki, was represented by her Psalm 100, performed more serenely than the words warrant, until the culminating cacophony.
Clever musical descriptions abounded in French-Canadian composer Lionel Daunais’ setting of five poems by Guillaume Apollinaire, particularly in the ones about fish, where one could feel the fishtails waving, the water weeds undulating to the music’s ebb and flow. Later, in a bittersweet poem on love in World War I, one could hear in the marching notes the short steps of hurting feet.
Lastly, in this well-designed program of considerable musical interest, came an expressive group of sacred songs, Sechs Geistliche Lieder by Hugo Wolf, better known for his solo works in the genre.
Only two things marred what was otherwise a fine concert. Choral Arts Northwest always sounds serene and beautiful, but never exciting, even when the music demands it. And there were no program notes, not even dates of composers. Sparks gave a few comments on each, but it was not adequate. It would have been a big addition to the concert to have had background on each composer and to have had each work put in its context.
