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'Songs of Kabir' is a finely woven musical tapestry

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 6, 1995
R.M. Campbell, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Music Critic

The Seattle Choral Company, led by founder Fred Coleman, closed it current season Sunday night a Meany Theater with an arresting, handsomely delivered concert, including the premiere of William Hawley's "Songs of Kabir".

The text for the involved new piece was the Indian poet Kabir. Coleman wanted a choral work that was sacred in nature but not Christian, in part because so much of the choral literature relies on Christianity to provide inspiration as well as words.

The 15the century writer and mystic was an early apostle of Eastern ecumenism who attempted to bridge Hindu and Muslim thought and preached the universal equality of men. While his origins are unclear (virginal birth and a Brahmin mother are among the legends), there is no question he was an orphan, found and adopted by a Muslim weaver.

Kabir's name means "great" in Arabic. He adopted neither Hinduism nor Islam as his religion but incorporated what he regarded as the best tenets of both and created his own, called "sahaja-yoga" ("simple union"). From the Hindus, Kabir took reincarnation, for instance, and from the Moslems, the belief in one God.

His poetry was written in Hindi, with little thought to style or grammar. However, none of that is apparent in the translation used by Hawley. The soaring lyricism of the great Indian-poet/philosopher Rabindranath Tagore's translation transcends any inherent limitations of the original text and makes the music unfold with uncommon grace and a gentle spirit. With its lush harmonies, evanescent sonorities and mild dissonances, the work hints at old-fashioned romanticism and new-fashioned modernism.

Clearly, "Songs of Kabir" strives to be a part of the school, loosely labeled as Eastern European "mystics" that includes composers Henryk Górecki and Andrzej Panutnik of Poland and Arvo Pärt of Estonian.

"Songs of Kabir" slowly evolves and is simply structured. Its many textures are one of its chief virtues. At times hushed and at time grand, the piece works well in the theater. The lines of a solo soprano (Lauren Wagner) and baritone (Kevin C. Helppie) are woven with considerable skill into the choral fabric as a whole. The performance was equally striking, with both the 50-piece orchestra and nearly 90-member chorus performing with appreciable poise.Wagner use her large-scale soprano with aplomb. She clearly had thought about Kabir's poetry and invested the music with the passion of the text.

The group will record "Songs of Kabir" later this summer. It is not hard to discern why. It should be a popular success. Fauré's "Pavane" opened the concert in a soft, telling manner. Dvorak's "Te Deum" followed and was not as persuasive. Wagner and baritone Clayton Brainerd were the soloists. Holsts' "Choral Hymns" for female voices, based on the "Rig-Veda", was a superb pairing with "Songs". The performance was good.