Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

Tom Bogdan, Kimberly Switzer, Meredity Monk, Grant Gershon, Theo Bleckmann, Allison Sniffin, Katie Geissinger, and members of the LAMC
Photo: mine 2010

Meredith Monk and members of her ensemble returned with their other-worldly music to L.A. on Sunday for a performance with the Los Angeles Master Chorale. The show, which also featured music from Arvo Pärt, was a follow-up to a successful appearance the composer made with the chorale a few years back. However, despite this desire for collaboration, the chorale itself felt strangely absent from much of the music for the evening - typically playing a secondary or supportive role to others. The centerpiece of the night was a new commission from the LAMC for Monk, WEAVE, which received its West Coast premiere at the concert. WEAVE, like many of Monk's more recent works involves increasingly large amounts of instrumental music in addition to soloists and a choral ensemble. Two members of Monk's ensemble, Theo Bleckmannn and Katie Geissinger, performed the solo parts consisting more of vocal sounds than actual "singing" which is not unusual in the composer's sonic world. The seated chorus murmured along in the background. Monk’s program note for the composition refers to “layers” of music and sound that intersect and change one another, which sounds as apt a description as any I could come up with. However, despite the presence of several capital letters in the title, the work seemed rather non-committal to me like much of Monk's more instrumentally intensive music. It's pleasant enough, but often feels focused on process over content - kind of like watered-down Steve Reich. Or is that the other way around?

Things dramatically improved on the outskirts of the rather long evening with Monk herself and her ensemble performing excerpts from Songs of Ascension, a theater work she and collaborator Ann Hamilton developed over the last few years. Ascension was seen here in a fully staged version at REDCAT in 2008 and was not particularly memorable. But here, the music seemed alive and new. While I’m sure it has been refined over time, I think the piece also benefited from the removal of some of the more pretentious elements of the theater piece including a wandering string ensemble which was now stationary, and a dance component that was reduced to a very small amount of movement for ensemble and chorus. Songs of Ascension was also beefed up for a much larger chorus here, which gave the LAMC a chance to shine in an evening where they were sometimes overly sidelined. The work makes clear references to eastern spirituality and connecting with a higher power. It's lovely and engaging music that suffered only one misstep in the semi-staging at the end when the ensemble members rearranged themselves on the stage taking supine lying positions on the stage as they continued to sing. For some odd reason, Grant Gershon, who had been at the rear of the ensemble conducting the chorale, also took a siesta on the floor evoking laughter from the audience in what was otherwise a serene and uplifting moment. But outside of this one bad call, it was the highlight of Monk's works on the program.

Truth be told though, the best music on Sunday came in the form of Arvo Pärt’s Miserere. The chorale had limited involvement here, too, providing only two short segments of light in a rather somber and dark arrangement for five soloists and a handful of instrumentalists including organ. Pärt is also a composer with an interest in the spiritual, one heavily influenced by his own experience with the Eastern Orthodox Church. But despite its own Eastern influences, the spiritual comes off in his work as something more structured and tradition bound. In comparison to Monk's Songs of Ascension, Pärt's Miserere sounded like the B Minor Mass. But whatever your belief system, it was a night of some lovely music making.

Labels: LA Master Chorale 09/10

Grant Gershon, the LA Master Chorale, and Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra
Photo: mine 2010

It may have been Oscar night, but the Los Angeles Master Chorale mostly filled the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Sunday for a performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. I know it seems there would be a lot of overlap between the typical LAMC audience and the typical Oscar show audience, but nonetheless there were bodies in the seats so somebody had made some tough decisions. I myself had just gotten off a plane from Chicago and was very glad I made the choice I did because it was a very good performance from the talented vocal artists of the chorale.

Of course, the evening was particularly blessed not only with the leadership of director Grant Gershon, but also by the forces of Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra. As is usually the case, the LAMC sounds just that much better when they’re paired with an orchestra good enough to keep up with them. Gershon took a very balanced and magisterial approach to the piece. In recent years, I seem to have run across an increasing number of semi- and fully staged productions of this work and I must admit I’ve rather grown to love performances that play up the operatic and theatrical aspects of Bach’s work. And while this was not one of them, Gershon and the LAMC did maintain a reverence and spiritual quality to the evening that made it worthwhile.

The many soloists were drawn from the ranks of the chorale and most were quite good. I was particularly fond of Steve Pence’s Jesus. I think he also had some of the most reasonable German of the evening. In fact, considering the accent and diction issues overall, it seems like it might have been better just to perform the work in English translation. Such an approach has worked well for directors like Jonathan Miller, and a translation can emphasize the more communal aspects of the work. But, in any event, it was another lovely evening from the LAMC.

Labels: LA Master Chorale 09/10

Vasily Petrenko and Piotr Anderszewski with the LA Philharmonic
Photo: mine 2010

Sunday was a pretty good day for music. And while none of the proceedings at the Walt Disney Concert Hall benefited from Beyoncé or Lady Gaga, there was certainly more than enough excitement. First up in the afternoon was the concluding performance from the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko. The young, seemingly good-natured Russian led an appropriately Romantic Manfred Symphony with all the heartstrings intact. This is potboiler Tchaikovsky at his most long-winded and towards the end of the nearly hour-long work its normal for the mind to wonder. But Manfred is pretty much what you get here, and despite its ostentation, it was well played. Prior to this was the highlight of the afternoon. Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with Piotr Anderszewski as soloist. Anderszewski is one of the most compelling pianists before the public today, and he turned out a performance of an old warhorse that was as fresh and alive as anything. With a fleet and surprisingly light touch, he carefully avoided overworking the first movement. The Largo was a cool, pristine burst of evening and amazing to hear. Anderszewski had also wowed the audiences downtown earlier in the week in a performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet along with members of the LA Philharmonic. Drenched in grief, the chamber piece had much more lyricism than one might expect from the Russian master known for his ability to turn rapidly between dirge and military drive. On both occasions it was just lovely, lovely playing.

Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale
Photo: mine 2010

Later on Sunday, the WDCH was occupied by Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale doing a program of largely a cappella 20th century sacred music including two settings of the Mass. Each half of the program featured a work with organ accompaniment followed by a larger a cappella composition. Even though it was all 20th-century material, there was a split between works from the living, like Nico Muhly, and those of the deceased, Frank Martin and Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur. The program opened with Muhly's Bright Mass with Canons featuring a rather Messiaenic organ part that tinkled along busily often in opposition to the chorale music. Gershon told us about Muhly’s being a hot, young talent and while I’m not convinced of the latter from any of his music I’ve heard so far, I would say that in the words of Meatloaf two out of three ain’t bad. Messiaen hung over the more substantial music on the program as well as in Daniel-Lesur's Le cantique des cantiques,a twelve-part a cappella work plumbing topics simultaneously spiritual and sensual that Daniel-Lesur's contemporary was no stranger to. It was magnificent with perhaps the most deeply felt sentiments in an evening filled with proclamations of faith. It was well paired with Frank Martin's Mass for a Double Choir that provided a beautiful and contemporary setting of the Mass. It's a shame that Martin's work isn't better known in this country, and I'm thankful to Gershon and the excellent musicians of the Chorale for sharing these two particular wonders with us.

Labels: LA Master Chorale 09/10, LA Philharmonic 09/10

Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Orchestra
Photo: mine 2009

Recently James Oestreich opined in the New York Times about the potential benefits of not having quite so many performances of Handel’s Messiah around the holidays in favor of other more Christmas-oriented material. The question seems just as relevant here in Los Angeles where there will be four performances of that work alone in eight days just at the Walt Disney Concert Hall – two from Les Violons du Roy under Bernard Labadie and another two from the Los Angeles Master Chorale. But luckily the LAMC and conductor Grant Gershon had the same thought about alternate programming, and on Sunday presented a varied program of classic and contemporary pieces appropriate to the season. As is usually the case, the chorus was magnificent, even if the material didn’t always live up to their caliber as an ensemble. The LAMC can be modern, and certainly has a firm grip on important choral music of the past. But there’s also a populist streak in the programming that’s hard to avoid, demanding easy-access and even sing-along fare. Sunday’s concert brought all of these impulses bound together in the Christmas spirit.

The best part of the evening was a robust and clear rendition of Vaughn Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols. There tradition of British choral music has few equals, and Vaughn Williams is an integral part of this history. His adaptations of these four traditional British carols set for strings and organ also has a big baritone solo part that was performed with some power by Abdiel Gonzalez. It was a lovely moment that seemed both nostalgic and reverent without being overly sentimental. The program opened with another strong piece, a Baroque Midnight Mass for Christmas Eve by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Charpentier took traditional French carols of his time and adapted them to a standard Latin Mass text. It had a real familiarity to it and for once the orchestral accompaniment sounded tight enough to support the excellent vocal performance from the chorale.

There were more contemporary elements in the evening as well. The LAMC has a big commitment to world music, and this program included Ariel Ramirez’ Navidad Nuestra from the 1960s, a setting of the Nativity story transplanted to South America using Latin dance rhythms and traditional instrumentation. The piece was conducted with enthusiasm by LAMC assistant conductor Ariel Quintana. It bubbled along pleasantly, but lacked a certain contemporary drama that probably speaks more to the era of its composition than anything else. But this was a Christmas concert, and given the popular leanings of the chorale, it would be hard to avoid some more commonly known music, which took the form of Conrad Susa’s A Christmas Garland. This medley of widely-known carols invited audience participation in several spots but, along with some additional carols in the encore, suffered from rather pedestrian arrangements. Still, singing like this at the Holidays is as much about a sense of community as anything else, and, to that extent, the evening could hardly be judged as anything less than successful.

Labels: LA Master Chorale 09/10

The Los Angeles Master Chorale
Photo: mine 2009

After a week of fewer posts than I intended and less exciting performances than I’d hoped, I arrived Sunday night at the very well attended season opener for the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Following the ridiculously overblown Los Angeles Philharmonic gala last weekend, it was refreshing to see L.A.’s world-class chorale without Mylar confetti, television cameras, or overrated maestros. Instead we got the L.A. Master Chorale making great music without too much unnecessary hype. And that wasn’t the only novelty. Music director Grant Gershon chose to start the season with a smart program featuring several choruses from the John Adams' opera, The Death of Klinghoffer, paired with Mozart’s Requiem. As Gershon noted from the stage, the two pieces have more in common than meets the eye, inviting the audience to think of the choruses as a Requiem of sorts as well.

Klinghoffer, even in these tiny portions, is a rarity in a world highly polarized around issues of Middle Eastern politics and race relations. Few companies will touch the work despite the relative success of Adams' other operas and, in my experience, even people who like contemporary music find themselves pressed to enjoy any part of the work without viewing it as a looking glass for their own beliefs about the Middle East. But the controversy of twenty years ago has faded somewhat, and to hear the segments on Sunday was a real treat by any measure. They were performed expertly by a chorus much larger than one would likely ever see on an opera stage for this work in a glowing and often moving setting. There was rage and beauty and regret like any Requiem, and Gershon's comparison was easy to appreciate. And while Alice Goodman’s poetic libretto may not be to everyone's taste, it can be alternately direct and poetic and I found it rather insightful at times.

Sadly, the Mozart didn’t go quite as smoothly as the Adams piece. Or maybe it went too smoothly. The Requiem had so much polish that it could be soporific at times, sliding by not so much as a funeral mass but more as a lullaby. The soloists were lost in the mix, even if the overall sound of the chorus was still lovely. But even an hour of undercooked Mozart was a small price to pay for the lovely Klinghoffer choruses.

Labels: LA Master Chorale 09/10