Review of Mastersingers by the Sea's "O Sing Unto the Lord"

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            “O Sing Unto The Lord” was offered by the Mastersingers by the Sea and the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players, directed by David MacKenzie this past weekend.  The program showcased two contemporary pieces, as we have come to expect from this group.  According to Dr. MacKenzie, in his humorous explanations between the pieces:  He is taking the choir to where no choir has gone before.  This is much to our musical delight and exploration.

            Libby Larsen’s “Crowding North (2007)” was the more complex of the two.  She used the words of a 16^th century Jesuit missionary to China, from a book by Deborah Larsen Cowan.  Beginning with his taking charge of a boat in Lisbon, the festivities included a parade, jugglers, long silk flags, flotillas “glittering for my pleasure in the sun,” visualized in the colorful music.  The choir and full chamber orchestra then turned to a rather stark mode:  “The bells of the Church of the Wounds of Christ began to toll”; and proceeded to dreamlike, surreal images of his voyage and his memories.  The choir sang with a wonderfully clear, unembellished tone and poignantly conveyed his expectations:  “Gian Pietro, if you receive the words of this letter, praise God the Father of all for the miracle.”  The friend’s name is evoked in echoing falling cascades, which unify at God’s name.  This section ended abruptly:  “Do you remember how, once, a blackbird threw no shadow?”  The sail continues with a “flash of white sturgeon”, dramatized by the choir, and the fourth section:  “The Simple History of a Chamber” is written from his prison cell, surrounded by insects.  The singers accommodate with cricket chirps leading to a silence, his martyrdom.  This is a truly remarkable work; Dr. MacKenzie’s mission be praised!

            Carlyle Sharpe’s “Eternity’s Music” to words of Walt Whitman, was lighter in texture, beginning with the shimmering harp of Sarah Stuart and the portative continuo of Kevin Galie.  This also conveyed a watery passage:  “summer rains, or wayward rivulets . . . subterranean sea-rills making for the sea.”  A smaller chamber group accompanied the singers with rhythmic complexity, some dissonant harmonies relaying rough seas, and then fading out, as a receding tide.  It was well-performed and an engaging, shorter piece.

            The first half closed with the heart of the program:  J.S.Bach’s “Double Concerto for violin and oboe” (1717/18).  Jesse Holstein, violin, and Laura Shamu, oboe, were consummate Baroque performers, totally responsive to the bouncing lines awash with color, harmony and shapely contours.  Mr. Holstein, standing, moved enticingly but not obtrusively, drawing us into the music.  He uses a full, resonant sound with some vibrato, which brings out a pleasing fullness, a vibrancy that is the key to Baroque music.  Ms. Shamu’s oboe was assuring and seemingly effortless, joyfully answering the violin’s lines and then taking the lead.  Their otherworldly, buoyant duet was accompanied by pizzacato strings and light continuo.  It was gratifying to see the other musicians so integrated and totally involved in contributing to this magnificent performance.  They are not amateurs, like the choir, but clearly love the music and each other; we are so fortunate to be the beneficiaries of their talent, work, generosity and rapport with Dr. MacKenzie.

            The Vivaldi “Concerto No. 3 for Flute in Major, Il Gardellino” (1729) was also brilliantly played.  Vanessa Holroyd, flute, is quite a virtuoso and sweetly nuanced the “whistled silvery trills, warbled phrases and plaintive notes of the European Goldfinch,” the source of Vivaldi’s inspiration, according to the program notes. 

            George Handel’s “Chandos Anthem No. 4, O Sing Unto the Lord” ended the program and was an ebullient, happy piece the choir, orchestra and soloists, Rebecca Grimes, soprano, and Fredric Scheff, tenor, thoroughly enjoyed and transmitted to the audience.  The Chandos Anthems were written for a duke, his family and staff:  maids, servants and stableboys.  These singers easily mastered the attenuated phrases glorifying the Lord:  “Sing unto the Lord all the whole earth,”  and the tenor solo:  “The waves of the sea rage horribly, but yet the Lord who dwells on high is mightier.”  It ends with “Let the earth be glad, let the sea make a noise!”  The audience at St. Barnabas Church took its cue, with a loud round of applause for this perfectly marvelous performance.

            “Intimate Music for Intimate Spaces” continues in fall, November 13 and 14, at St. Barnabas Church.

 (Susan Pennington is the music director at St. Anthony’s Church and teaches art appreciation at the Cape Cod Conservatory.)