Vocal and Choral

Arvo Pärt – Odes of Repentance
Cappella Romana; Alexander Lingas
Cappella Records CR428 (cappellarecords.com)

Esteemed senior Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s current idiomatic musical style is rooted in Gregorian chant and later European polyphonic liturgical music, yet his early career compositional language embraced 20th century serialism and then minimalism. In addition, his use of Christian liturgical texts triggered censure from Soviet cultural authorities in the 1960s, leading to a personal reckoning. After years of personal renunciation, Pärt emerged in the 1970s with a new compositional style he dubbed “tintinnabula.” 

In an unexpected twist of history, his often austere, meditative, faith-based music has found a wide audience in the decades since. He’s frequently ranked among the world’s most performed composers, particularly of choral music. And that’s what we hear on the Odes of Repentance album: a prayerful suite of choral works over 12 tracks. The selections were compiled by Alexander Lingas the music director of Portland Oregon’s Cappella Romana, a professional mixed choir known for its rigorous historically-informed performances of Orthodox church music. For example, Cappella Romana hired an Old Church Slavonic coach to aid in pronouncing that language for these performances.

Cappella Romana is an ideal match for Pärt’s sacred music. For example, The Woman with the Alabaster Box is a Gospel reading; there are also Orthodox hymns, heartfelt prayers and psalmody, all capped by Prayer after the Kanon. The album feels like a timeless liturgical service, the elegant leanness of its musical language kept in aesthetic tension and given additional meaning by the ritual lyrics and frequent short pauses for silent reflection.

Monteverdi – Vespers of 1610
The Thirteen; Children’s Chorus of Washingon; Dark Horse Consort; Matthew Robertson
Acis APL53837 (acisproductions.com)

As we are reminded in the informative liner notes of this new recording of Claudio Monteverdi’s sacred masterpiece, Vespers is an early evening prayer service, part of the Liturgy of the Hours, fulfilling Jesus’ command to “pray always.” Replete with psalm texts, a hymn and the Magnificat (the canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary) Vespers is designed to be contemplative and Monteverdi’s setting is miraculous in its variety of textures, virtuosity and hypnotic harmonies. In addition, it marries Renaissance and Baroque musical styles with staggering beauty and uniformity, featuring a wide array of vocal and instrumental writing. 

The Thirteen was founded in 2012 in Washington, D.C. by Matthew Robertson and the group has a wide mandate, performing music from all eras, specializing in early and contemporary choral works and educational outreach. Their recording of Vespers – in collaboration with the Children’s Chorus of Washington and the early winds of the Dark Horse Consort – took place in the reverberant acoustic of Washington’s Franciscan Monastery. 

The solo and small ensemble singing is uniformly excellent, including a radiant Nigra Sum sung by soprano Michele Kennedy, a sumptuous Pulchra es sung by sopranos Molly Quinn and Katelyn Jackson and a tour de force Duo Seraphim from tenors Aaron Sheehan, Stephen Soph and Oliver Mercer. The chorus and instrumental ensemble bring a suitable glory and grandeur to the performance: 90 minutes of life-affirming, provocative “new” music, written over 400 years ago.

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Alessandro Scarlatti – La sposa dei cantici
Meghan Lindsay; John Holiday; Jay Carter; Ryland Angel; Ars Lyrica Houston; Matthew Dirst
Acis APL53721 (acisproductions.com)

The Scarlattis were a tremendously gifted and prolific musical family, with Domenico composing over 500 keyboard sonatas and his father Alessandro writing over 100 operas, 600 cantatas and 30 oratorios. Even in comparison to their impressively productive contemporaries such as Bach, Handel and Telemann, their output remains staggeringly high and defined Italian musical style for decades.

This recording, performed by Ars Lyrica Houston and directed by Matthew Dirst, features Alessandro Scarlatti’s La Sposa Dei Cantici (The Bride of Songs), which is scored for strings, continuo and four soloists: three countertenors and one soprano. As with many early works, this music’s journey from composition to 21 st century performance is characteristically complex, its material existing in numerous reworkings, adaptations and even different libretti set to the same music for performance in different locations at different times of year. Long story short, this recording is essentially a snapshot of the music’s state in 1710 in Naples, as indicated through manuscripts in the Stanford University Library and Paris’ Bibliotheque National.

As with almost all Italian Baroque oratorios, La Sposa Dei Cantici consists mostly of recitatives and da-capo arias, with a brief orchestral Sinfonia and the occasional dramatic interjection. Despite this formulaic nature, Scarlatti was able to craft a large-scale work of striking beauty, using both vocal and instrumental soloists to achieve ranges of expression that are both delightful and captivating.

Built on a libretto far less dramatic and aggressive than Italian opera, Ars Lyrica brings out the best of Scarlatti’s La Sposa Dei Cantici, keeping a sense of momentum and expression that ensures a smooth flow from recitative to aria and back again. This is a wonderful recording that deserves to be heard by all, whether familiar with the Scarlatti family or discovering them for the first time.

Ethel Smyth – Der Wald
Soloists; BBC Singers; BBC Symphony Orchestra; John Andrews
Resonus RES10324 (resonusclassics.com/products/smyth-der-wald-the-forest)

No paragon of “proper” English womanhood, the openly bisexual, cigar-smoking feminist who composed the suffragette anthem, The March of the Women, spent two months in jail for stoning and shattering an anti-suffrage politician’s office windows. Nevertheless, Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) achieved success at a time when women composers were routinely ignored, becoming in 1922 Britain’s first female composer honoured as a “Dame.”

In 1902, Smyth’s 66-minute, one-act opera Der Wald premiered in Berlin and in 1903 became the first and only opera by a woman produced at the Metropolitan Opera until 2016 (!). The libretto, by Smyth and Henry Brewster, originally in German, is sung here in Smyth’s English translation (included).

The peasant maiden Röschen (soprano Natalya Romaniw) and her fiancé, woodcutter Heinrich (tenor Robert Murray), are beset by the malevolent Iolanthe (mezzo Claire Barnett-Jones), who lusts for Heinrich. Of the five other soloists, baritones Andrew Shore (Pedlar) and Morgan Pearse (Count Rudolf) play important parts in the unfolding of the tragic drama.

Smyth’s admiration for two composers often considered opposites – Brahms and Wagner – is manifested in the lush, warm, Brahmsian choruses of forest spirits and the Wagner-enriched arias of Röschen, Heinrich and Iolanthe. Other highlights are the Röschen-Heinrich love-duet, the ebullient peasant dance and chorus, and the stirring, defiant, dying declamations of Heinrich and Röschen.

Conductor John Andrews, the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra energetically provide rich colours and powerful climaxes in this premiere recording of Smyth’s landmark opera.

Stravinsky, Janáček, Bartók: Village Stories
Prague Philharmonic Choir; Lukáš Vasilek
Supraphon SU4333-2 (supraphon.com/album/763075-stravinsky-janacek-bartok-village-stories)

Village Stories brings together the worlds of ethnomusicology and nationalism in one compelling package. The featured composers were all profoundly influenced by their interest in indigenous musical materials to varying degrees. Bartók roamed far and wide scientifically recording and transcribing source materials on Edison cylinders; Janáček did much the same, though more modestly, while also probing deeply into the melodies concealed in everyday human speech. Stravinsky took a more leisurely approach, shamelessly stealing his materials from pre-existing publications. (The eerie opening bassoon solo of his Rite of Spring, for example, is cribbed from a volume of Lithuanian folk songs.) 

The apogee of Stravinsky’s magpie-mania culminated in his explosive and highly influential ballet Les Noces (The Wedding) for chorus, four pianos and percussion ensemble, completed after many false starts in 1923.

Janáček’s whimsical Říkadla (Nursery Rhymes, 1926) is a late work based on humorous doggerel culled from the funny pages of his daily newspaper. Scored for ten instruments (including a toy drum and an ocarina!) and a small choir, it is a patently absurd and highly enjoyable treasure trove of good clean fun. He considered these Czech verses as “frolicsome, witty, cheerful – that’s what I like about them. They’re rhymes after all!” This delightful set of 18 choral miniatures is guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

Bartók’s Three Village Scenes, also composed in 1926, is scored for female choir and chamber orchestra. It is considered by some to be his response to Stravinsky’s Les Noces, but with a twist. The opening movement likewise depicts a wedding scene, though the agitated, asymmetric orchestral outbursts and minor key setting hint at a dim future; a line of the text reads, “I’m a rose, a rose, but only when I’m single. When I have a husband, Petals drop and shrivel.” The subsequent Lullaby touchingly laments an uncertain future for a mother’s child. A rollicking Lad’s Dance concludes the work on a more positive note.

Full English translations of the Russian, Czech and Hungarian texts are included with the physical product; unusually, the Stravinsky libretto is also provided in the Cyrillic alphabet. The perfoóóórmances are uniformly excellent and the audio production first class. Not to be missed.