Chicago Classical Review

English choral music has long been the backbone of choirs around the world, both amateur and professional. The Chicago Chorale is no exception. They have explored this territory well over the years, having made Herbert Howells’s Requiem one of their specialties. 

In their Sunday afternoon concert at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Hyde Park, they highlighted two rarer works by major composers: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G minor and Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb.

Those accustomed to the pastoral warmth of Vaughan Williams’s more popular works might be surprised by the relative austerity of the mass, a clear nod toward the style of English Renaissance music.

However, conductor Bruce Tammen did not let the music grow cold. Although the Chorale’s long-time artistic director avoided dynamic extremes (and one might have wished for a bit more power in the coda of the Credo), he exercised fine control over dynamics and tempo, such as the beginning of the Gloria and the transition to the “Et incarnatus” within the Credo. The Chorale singers ably rendered his interpretive subtleties.

Of the four soloists, soprano Rebecca Blumer had the most powerful voice, occasionally overwhelming her colleagues when they sang as a quartet. Juliana Freschi had perhaps the purest timbre and cleanest intonation of any of the concert’s soloists, making one regretful that Vaughan Williams allows the alto part so few solo moments.

Michael Byrley’s light, lyrical timbre (free from operatic excess) is the kind of tenor ideal for English choral repertoire. Vaughan Williams gives bass Peter Olson very few bars  as well but in the quartet passages he showed himself fully capable of maintaining well-modulated high notes at soft dynamics.

Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb—somewhat better known than Vaughan Williams’s mass—is a cantata setting eccentric religious verses that the 18^th-century poet Christopher Smart wrote while institutionalized in an asylum.

Britten’s settings range from the bouncy (the dips in and out of 7/8 in “Let Nimrod the mighty hunter”) to the spectral (“For I am under the same accusation with my Saviour”). Tammen and the chorale gave the former the necessary lilt and added a surprising but effective tone of genuine menace to the latter.

The most celebrated poems in the cantata are those sung by the four soloists. The first of these is Smart’s praise of his cat Jeffrey as a servant of God. It’s easy for a soprano to get too cute here, which can be especially cloying when combined with the frilly organ part. Rebecca Witmer didn’t fall into this trap, serving up just the right amount of characterization.

The mouse aria that follows sits uncomfortably low for most altos. But Allison Hoover-Kinne handled this range well, leaving her room to shape the text.

The male solo parts in the cantata are less rewarding. Tenor Colin Garon made the most of what he was given, though, with an even-toned and melancholic rendition of “For the flowers are great blessings.”

As with Hoover-Kinne and the alto part, Drew Boshardy was well suited to the bass part. Boshardy has a baritonal timbre, which was effective for lines in which ringing high notes are more important than low ones.

Besides the Vaughan Williams and Britten, the Chicago Chorale performed two shorter works, also by English composers.

They opened the concert with their old friend Herbert Howells: this time, his anthem Like as the Hart, in which the chorale displayed excellent clarity of diction.

William Harris’s anthem Bring Us, O Lord God was the afternoon’s best display of the choir’s dynamic shading (again, very well sculpted by Tammen). And their tuning was more secure, which was particularly impressive in music filled with ear-catching harmonic surprises.

Organist David Jonies didn’t have anything interesting to do in the Howells and Harris. The Britten, however, puts the organ on fully display. It is filled with passagework, trills, and tricky rhythms, all of which Jonies spun out in flowing lines.

The Chicago Chorale’s season will close June 8 with a concert of music by Bach, Bruckner and Brahms 3 p.m. at Hyde Park Union Church. chicagochorale.org

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