Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

Grant Gershon with members of the L.A. Master Chorale
Photo: mine 2009

With all of the historic L.A. Philharmonic concerts of last month, it might be easy to overlook some of the offerings of the other resident company at Walt Disney Concert Hall. However, Sunday proved to be one of the best concerts of the soon to be concluded Los Angeles Master Chorale season which comes right on the heels of the chorale’s masterful turn in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Symphony of Psalms two weeks ago. And, although I was struggling with a bit of jet lag, I was very glad to be there. The program consisted of two major sacred works – Haydn’s Missa St. Bernardi von Offida, commonly known as the Heilig Mass, and Messiaen’s Trois petites liturgies de la Présence Divine. Although it might be hard to think of two more dissimilar pieces of sacred music, under the leadership of Grant Gershon, these works were mighty impressive and a natural fit for each other. The Haydn performance wrapped up a survey of the composer’s six late masses and, from my perspective, that was the strongest performance of any of them the LAMC has done. Not that the prior 5 were in anyway bad, but the Heilig Mass took on a particular clarity and urgency. Perhaps still feeling the afterglow of the Symphony of Psalms, I found the performance seemed somehow bigger and more magical than Haydn can sometimes be and I felt myself getting rather excited about it all.

Of course, having a large work from Messiaen in the second half of the program may have contributed somewhat to this feeling. The three liturgies in his mid-century work for a female chorus sounded nearly otherworldly. It’s set to the composer's original text with an almost hallucinatory quality. This is further enhanced by the presence of an ondes Martenot, one of the earliest of electrical instruments that was played here by Mary Chun. It’s sort of a cross between a pedal steel and a theremin, and it augments the other major instruments in the work including piano, vibraphone, and celesta. It’s wailing and electrical moaning enhanced the special quality of the piece, which was every bit as moving as the Haydn, despite some rocky playing at times from the strings. I know I harp on this all the time, but once again the chorale has the unfortunate circumstances of performing with an ad hoc orchestra that, despite adequate playing, doesn’t quite live up to the vocal ensemble's caliber. The chorale sounded great, though, and it was quite sad that the audience seemed a bit smaller than usual for reasons that aren’t completely clear to me. It was Sunday, though, and I can't think of a better way to have concluded it.

Labels: LA Master Chorale 08/09

Grant Gershon, Nico Muhly and the L.A. Master Chorale
Photo: mine 2009

While I haven’t yet seen the new Das Rheingold at LA Opera (that will have to wait until Wednesday this week), I did have a weekend filled with music from a variety of other notable ensembles reminding us that Wagner was not the only game in town. Probably the highlight of the weekend was the latest Los Angeles Master Chorale show. Who knows what the theme was – there seemed to be hundreds of them. The show was billed as “Chorus + Organ” and many of the pieces did involve at least some cursory organ accompaniment from Christopher Bull. But just as much of the music on the bill didn't. There was also a good bit of new and very recent music, and director Grant Gershon bandied about some banalities about “darkness and light.” You can take your pick, but the program showed off what I love best about the chorale, superb musicianship and a serious interest in contemporary compositions. To start, though, was some not-so-contemporary stuff from Arvo Pärt, Brahms, and a pair of motets from Anton Bruckner. Yes, I never though I’d see the name Bruckner so close to the word “motets” either but there they were in all their romantic German glory and they were likely the highlight of the whole evening. Offset against these works were two world premieres – Andrea Clearfield’s Dream Variations and Steven Sametz' Music’s Music. The former was a movie-music sounding setting of Langston Hughes poems commissioned with the Debussy Trio in mind that was rather forgettable. The Sametz piece, was a commission from retiring LAMC friend and administrator Kathie Freeman taking a text from a poem written by her daughter at the composer's suggestion. It was very pretty with a substantial solo part for mezzo Erica Brookhyser and clearly meant a lot to everyone in the organization. Probably the musical stand-out among the newer works, however, was Nico Muhly’s Expecting the Main things from You, a setting of poems by Walt Whitman. While Muhly’s piece was the most substantial, it was also the most recognizably derivative from recent forebearers like John Adams and Steve Reich. But if you’re going to borrow, borrow from the best I always say. Above it all, though, was our wonderful local chorale. Subscriptions have gone on sale for the LAMC 09/10 season featuring choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer, Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, a new work form Meredith Monk, Pärt, Americana, and more recent work than you can shake a stick at.

Christian Zacharias with the L.A. Philharmonic
Photo: mine 2009

Prior to this show, I caught Sunday’s matinee performance from the L.A. Philharmonic conducted by the piano soloists and friend of the L.A. Phil, Christian Zacharias. Shows under his guidance are usually warm and engaging, and this was no exception, although things fared much better when he was playing than just conducting. There were rather lukewarm performances of Brahm’s Serenade No. 2, and Haydn’s sinfonia concertante in the first half of the program. But the real prize was Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor. Zacharias switched from the mechanical to the exuberant with this work, giving a gorgeous, unfussy performance. Not a program for the record books perhaps, but no slouch either.

Meanwhile, UCLA Live offered up a performance from the touring Munich Symphony Orchestra on Saturday under the direction of piano soloist Philippe Entremont. More German romantics were in the offing starting with Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll and the first Beethoven Piano Concerto. Both were accurate and engaged, but often overly plodding and deliberate, I felt. Entremont played with a sharp clarity, but it seemed a little on the careful and predictable side. There’s pretty and then there’s slow if you know what I mean. Things picked up after the break with Webern’s Fünf Sätze, and Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony. The zip was back at this point with taut, energetic attacks.

Labels: LA Master Chorale 08/09, LA Philharmonic 08/09

The Los Angeles Master Chorale
Photo: mine 2009

The Los Angeles Master Chorale continued its current season on Sunday with a performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah centered around should-be superstar Eric Owens. It was so close to a home run that it pains me to complain about a minor, if significant, problem. Though it’s in English from a Biblical source, there was no text or supertitles available for the audience. (Or at least none that I could find.) And despite some very fine singing, the bottom line is that if you didn’t know the piece already, you were pretty much screwed for the next couple of hours in terms of what was actually going on. It was a very good performance, but it would have been a great one with a text to interpret what was going on.

Robert MacNeil, Eric Owens, Diana Tash, and Mary Wilson with Grant Gershon
Photo: mine 2009

OK. Now that I've got that out of my system, let's move on and talk about the spectacular performance from the members of the Chorale. For a group so associated with more contemporary works, hearing them go full-throttle at a canonical piece like this with so much passion, control, and skill was a thrill. What’s more, the Chorale is finally getting the kind of orchestral support they deserve as the orchestra now is heavily populated with members of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra. The ties that bind between the Chorale and the Opera apparently grow stronger and stronger now that Grant Gershon, the LAMC’s music director has taken over as chorus master and Assistant Conductor for the LAO. Tonight, at least for the audience, it was a win/win situation as the orchestra actually lived up to the quality of the Chorale for one of the first times in recent memory.

The soloists were all of high caliber including Robert MacNeil, Mary Wilson, and Diana Tash. But, of course, the heaviest lifting was provided by Owens, whose booming, regal voice was as majestic at times as it was sensitive at others. He continues to be one of the few vocalists I look forward to hearing due to the consistently excellent quality of his performances. He should be a much bigger star than he is already. Of course, it would have been nice to actually know exactly what he was singing while he was singing it, but I guess that will have to wait for an opera stage somewhere in the future.

Labels: LA Master Chorale 08/09