Kansas City Chorale and Phoenix Chorale
by Harry Saltzman
A review of our March 16, 2009 concert
New York Concert Review
This was my first visit to the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall. Although the new hall now contains huge public spaces, the box office area is scandalously small. The old performing space had one basic flaw - it was almost impossible to produce a true fortissimo. I am happy to report that this is no longer the case as, when going full throttle, the Kansas City and Phoenix Chorales were able to fill the hall with glorious wall-expanding fortissimos.
This is a virtuoso ensemble which sings with clear diction and impeccable intonation, producing a most beautiful sound at dynamics ranging from the softest pianissimo hush to the afore-mentioned hall-filling fortissimo. The non-vibrato tone of the sopranos may not be a sound ideal I am fond of, but that is just personal preference. Far more important is that conductor Charles Bruffy beautifully shapes the musical lines so that they are always expressive and have forward thrust. He is constantly making music.
The concert began with the Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi's "Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae," a work written to commemorate those who died when the ferry Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea on September 28, 1994. Replete with many of the clichés of contemporary choral music (whispering, aleatoric speaking, an off-stage vocalize, et al.), it was given a heartfelt and moving performance. Three sacred songs by Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901) followed. Although they (and every subsequent work) were performed with consummate skill, I must question the choice of repertoire. With few exceptions, everything on the first half of the concert was slow and homophonic. Instead of the Rheinberger, one could have programmed the double chorus works of Robert Schumann or Brahms for instance, works from the same era, but ones which have many different tempi and textures.
The Rheinberger was followed by luscious Russian passion music by Alexander Grechaninov, again, mostly slow and homophonic. Although there is nothing more beautiful than a chorus singing the widely spaced chords of Russian sacred music, by this time it was like eating a meal in which every course contained fois gras. One longed for something less rich, something polyphonic, something fast.
The audience, however, loved luxuriating in these beautiful sounds. But I would have liked to hear these wonderful singers performing a more varied program.
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