March 13--Since 2011, when conductor John Nelson directed the first installment of a rotating cycle of J.S. Bach's three big sacred choral masterpieces with his Chicago Bach Project chorus and orchestra, classical music lovers have welcomed these annual performances as a central fixture of the local Eastertide celebration.
But this year's edition, devoted to Bach's towering Mass in B minor, suffered a potentially ruinous blow when Nelson, who is the founding artistic director of the SDG Music Foundation, the project's umbrella organization, withdrew after falling ill with pneumonia.
Fortunately, Delta David Gier, the project's assistant conductor, was available to assume command on short notice, and so the scheduled performance took place without any serious hitch Friday night at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
Although Nelson's enlivening insights were missed, Gier is an experienced choral and orchestral conductor who clearly knows his way around this grand summation of Bach's achievement in the realm of Baroque Lutheran sacred music. Completing the Bach Project's second cycle of the great trilogy, the B minor Mass provided a satisfying, often moving, musical and spiritual experience.
On hand were an all-new team of vocal soloists, an orchestra of 28 seasoned instrumentalists and a responsive chorus of 32 voices, prepared by Donald Nally. Although modern instruments were used, the articulations and timbres Gier secured from his players -- including an alert continuo group consisting of John Mark Rozendaal, cello; Douglas Johnson, bass; and Stephen Alltop, organ -- adhered to period practice.
So did Gier's deployment of smaller groups of singers within the larger choral body, along the lines of a Baroque concerto grosso with opposing concertino and ripieno ensembles. This allowed for contrasts in texture and balance that were integrated into the musical flow and did much to heighten the expressive effect of Bach's spiritual drama. So did the judicious tempos, airy textures and firm bass lines with which he connected long musical paragraphs.
Things got off to a weak start with a hushed "Kyrie" that felt seriously lacking in energy and forward motion, a miscalculated attempt to create a sense of awed anticipation of the great spiritual journey that lay ahead. Otherwise, pacing felt judicious -- never laden with thickly applied piety, but never brusque either.
Of the soloists, soprano Kathryn Lewek merged her pure and agile vocalism with the ornate violin obbligato solo of concertmaster Jorja Fleezanis in the "Laudamus te." John McVeigh was the affecting tenor soloist in the "Benedictus," and bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch delivered a sturdy "Quoniam tu solus sanctus." Margaret Lattimore brought a rich mezzo-soprano, if rather anodyne expression, to her solos.
Bach's masterful celebration of the risen Christ and the power of Christian belief benefited greatly from the chorus' clear Latin diction and security of blend, balance and intonation. Such qualities also worked to the benefit of Welsh composer John Metcalf's piquantly attractive "Laudate" (Psalm 150), a contemporary a cappella work receiving its U.S. premiere under Nally's direction, as part of the SDG foundation's ongoing project of choral commissions on psalm texts.
Ferris Chorale sings Arvo Part
Were he alive today, Bach surely would have appreciated the deeply held religious beliefs of Arvo Part (Eastern Orthodox, in the case of the Estonian-born composer) and the music that enshrines them. Part's 80th birthday season has been observed by several local choral groups, including, in recent months, the Chicago Chorale and Bella Voce, and on Saturday night at Mount Carmel Church in the city's Lakeview neighborhood, the William Ferris Chorale lent its massed voices to the Part celebration.
The centerpiece of director Paul French's program was Part's "Berliner Messe" (Berlin Mass), written for the 1990 Berlin German Catholic Days festival. The music was intended to be sung liturgically during Pentecost and adheres to the quiet and devout dignity of Part's spare, neo-medieval manner, but in a less ascetic style than his earlier works.
The six-movement version for chorus and organ accompaniment made a wondrous effect, the music's sonorities wafting from the choir loft to timeless effect in the resonant church acoustics.
The Ferris Chorale has made enormous strides under French's direction, and the present incarnation is a more versatile, more technically and musically secure, more finely disciplined choral body than ever. It proved as much in its imaginatively chosen survey of familiar and unfamiliar Gallic choral pieces by Francis Poulenc, Jean Langlais and Pierre Villette, including Poulenc's ravishing "Prayers of St. Anthony" with its intriguing chromaticism. The care with which the chorale members matched pitches in these lovely and colorful works was no less exact than in their singing of the Part mass.
The chorale has made supporting the coming generation of choral singers part of its mission, and in several brief American pieces it was gratifying to hear French's group performing shoulder to shoulder with the young Spirito! Bravura chorus, which is made up of 76 female high school students under the direction of Molly Lindberg. Whether singing on their own or with the Ferris contingent, they made a splendid showing.
John von Rhein is a Tribune critic.
jvonrhein@tribpub.com
