Note: In the interest of honest disclosure all reviews are presented without omission of any relevant material.
Choral Company ethereal in presenting church anthems
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Monday October 23, 1995
Philippa Kiraly, Special to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The renaissance of soaring choral sacred music, achieved with the deceptive simplicity of musical lines familiar to the 15th and 17th centuries, has no greater exponent today than Estonia's Arvo Pärt.
The Seattle Choral Company brought his "Te Deum" to this city for the first time this week, and it's a piece worth waiting for. Using its chamber choir of 28, plus the fine vocal group Cantabile from Portland as solo quartet, the Seattle Choral Company mounted an excellent exploration of some beautiful church anthems of those earlier centuries juxtaposed with the Pärt, Friday night at St. Marks Cathedral on Capitol Hill.
The heavenly strains of three unaccompanied Purcell works, sung cleanly, unhurriedly and with good diction (so hard in St. Marks), and exact intonation in the interweaving lines coming together in spot-on chords, were a very effective opening in the dimly lit cathedral.
Cantabile, also singing a cappella, sounded equally ethereal in William Byrd, Cristobal Morales and Palestrina. Bach's cantata "Jesu, meine Freude" led up to the 35-minute Pärt; a big work on impact, spare, almost stark in execution.
Pärt is not interested in the large effect, What comes across is his attitude, so similar to those old composers. He's not writing a piece of music per se, he's talking to God, and we are allowed to share it. Beauty is integral here.
While the "Te Deum" couldn't be mistaken for anything but a 20th century work, dissonance is used lightly. It was sung with the chamber choir and a small instrumental group near the altar, and Cantabile standing at the back of the nave.
The notes and rhythms were not in themselves difficult for the chorus, much harder for the solo quartet. What was hard was picking exact pitches out of the air, and in this the chamber choir did extremely well, as did Cantabile - LeaAnne DenBeste, soprano; Melody Peterson Boyce, soprano; David Vanderwal, tenor; and Craig Kingsbury, bass-baritone, joined here by baritone David Stutz.
