December 22, 2005 Issue                                                   

©2005 The Chestnut Hill Local

Brilliant Christmas concerts in area
by Michael Caruso

BLUEGRASS AT MERMAID INN: The Youngers, a talented band from Berks Count that combines bluegrass music with electric guitars, will be performing at The Mermaid Inn at 7673 Winston Rd. (Mermaid Lane & Germantown Avenue) on Thursday, Dec. 29, 8 p.m. For More information about the band, visit www.theyoungers.com.

Two of Philadelphia’s leading choruses presented Christmas concerts this past weekend. With sufficient energy, it was possible to take in both performances on the same day, which is what I did on Saturday. I heard the Mendelssohn Club’s “A Feast of Carols” right here in Chestnut Hill at 4 in the afternoon in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church; then, at 8 in the evening, I caught the Choral Arts Society’s “Christmas in Leipzig, 1723” in the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church.

The Mendelssohn Club’s music director, Alan Harler, admitted he was taking a chance by scheduling the choir’s holiday program for two performances rather than the single rendition given in previous years. But he thought the risk was worth taking since that solitary concert always resulted in hundreds of local music lovers being turned away at the door because St. Paul’s Church can only accommodate 650 or so in its pews.

Harler needn’t have worried. Both the afternoon and evening performances drew audiences that filled the sanctuary. Obviously, Chestnut Hillers and their nearby neighbors love Christmas music and have come to know that Harler and his choristers can be depended upon to deliver well-conceived programs beautifully sung.

This year’s roster of music leaned heavily in the direction of American composers, with only a very few Europeans thrown in for good measure. Chief among these was the choir’s namesake, Felix Mendelssohn, whose lovely “Ave Maria” was sung with throbbing conviction and lustrous vocalism by soprano soloist Margaret Nillson.

The program’s major work was the reprise of Glenn Rudolph’s The Dream Isaiah Saw. Composed in 2001 by the Bach Choir of Pittsburg and set to poetry by Thomas Troeger, the choral carol conjures up the image of the peaceable kingdom envisioned by the Old Testament prophet Isaiah.

When I heard The Dream Isaiah Saw for the first time last season, I found it strongly reminiscent of the musical style of contemporary Broadway musicals. Its gently pulsating yet snappy rhythms, its bright brass scoring, its catchy tunes and accessible harmonies build to a powerful climax that packs the emotional wallop of a cautionary sermon. I still find it a tad simplistic, yet its effect is hard to deny. It was certainly the afternoon audience’s favorite, and baritone Jason Steigerwalt’s singing was particularly beautiful.

Far more musically substantial was Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurunque, oddly enough also composed in 2001. Employing an idiom that is often dissonant but never off-putting, Whitacre utilized dense unaccompanied choral writing to convey a traditional Latin text recalling the angels’ wonder at the birth of Jesus Christ. Although far simpler in style, Donald St. Pierre’s “Shepherd” and “A New Song” were equally efficacious in setting their mood of assurance in the former and joy in the latter.

A BACH CHRISTMAS

When it comes to choosing ambitious programs, Matthew Glandorf has no equal in the region. Only a few weeks ago, Glandorf led his Choral Arts Society in a sterling rendition of Haydn’s “Lord Nelson” Mass. On Saturday night before a crowd in Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church that surpassed 1,000, Glandorf conducted the Choral Arts Society, organist Diane Belcher, the Bryn Mawr Boychoir and Girlchoir, the choir of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer (Bryn Mawr) and an orchestra of period instruments in a recreation of the Lutheran Vesper services led by Johann Sebastian Bach in the northern German city of Leipzig when he was its kappelmeister. Even though not every musical gamble paid off as handsomely as did others, the effort in and of itself was so noteworthy that the concert was a pleasure to experience.

Glandorf created his concert program by pairing Bach’s Christmas Cantata: “Das neugeborene Kindelein” with his “Magnificat.” He then surrounded these choral works with the solo organ scores that would have been performed during a typical Vespers at St. Thomas Church as well as the liturgical proclamations sung by the church’s pastor. It all came together to revive — minus the hour-long sermon! — the religious and communal context in which Bach lived and composed.

Glandorf is one of the few choral conductors in American who recognizes the difference between the music-making of our day and that of the more distant past and who takes that knowledge into account when he programs. For us, a concert is often little more than an aural diversion. For “concert-goers” in Bach’s day, however, the music served the liturgy of the church, be it either the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church of northern Germany or the Roman Catholic Church of Bavaria and Austria.

Sacred choral music was never performed “in concert.” It was, instead, heard as part of the listener’s expression of faith. In early 18th century Leipzig, Christmas was not a time of secular gift-giving. It was, rather, a solemn holy day of awe and gratitude. By interspersing non-choral music around and within the choral selections, Glandorf re-established that liturgical construct within which the music was experienced in its time.

Of the two major choral works, it’s the “Magnificat” — here heard with its Christmas interpolations — that made the finer impression. Its choruses are thrilling because of their energetic setting of the Virgin Mary’s exultant acknowledgment of God’s special grace to her as the Mother of the Messiah, its arias are melodically beguiling, and its poetic interpolations for boychoir are touching in their innocent sentimentality. Whereas the Cantata seemed perfunctorily composed, the “Magnificat” struck a note of sublime inspiration.