'The magic is still rising toward heaven' - 25.10.09

Concert Review: Basilica St. Louis, 24th October 2009. John Huxold, Special to the Post-Dispatch, 10/25/2009

The magic of music has been the topic of speculation and debate for centuries. In a variety of contexts, it has the power to excite, to shock, to soothe, to inspire.

Like all clichés, the observation that music bypasses the head and goes directly to the heart has some basis in fact as evidenced by its extensive use in advertising, movies and religion.

Friday night at the Cathedral Basilica some of that special magic was created by an English chamber choir. Tenebrae, as the group is called, takes its name from the Holy Week rite of the Catholic church that includes a ceremony of candles.

So, in the space in front of the chancel, 10 candle stands each holding 25 candles provided most of the light for the concert. The choir came in down the main aisle singing the plainsong hymn “Tantum Ergo” and the enchantment began. You could almost believe you were back in a more ancient, more mystical time.

Everything on the program maintained the ethereal atmosphere, and not just with the subject matter, which was uniformly religious. The compositions were all written in the last 75 years in a harmonic style that features gentle dissonances struggling to a climax but then resolving into a soaring, extended consonance.

With “Four Motets on Gregorian Themes” by Maurice Durufle, the title says it all. In the case of the “Mass in G” by Francis Poulenc the name of the composer says most of it, his extroverted and whimsical instrumental style converted to a more serious lightness of being.

Tenebrae doesn’t sing only from the front, but sometimes places its 18 voices in small groups at the sides and middle of the cathedral space, a true surround sound experience. The two sections of Joby Talbot’s “Path of Miracles” depicting a 12th-century pilgrimage benefitted most from this arrangement with its chord clusters raining down from everywhere.

“Funeral Ikos” and “Hymn to the Mother of God” by John Tavener with its unison singing and monosyllabic text tamed the cavernous cathedral acoustic. And “Song for St. Alban” by Tenebrae’s director, Nigel Short, got its world première; the piece goes in unique and abrupt harmonic directions that provide pleasant surprises at every turn.

Tenebrae has flawless intonation, exquisitely sculpted phrases and perfectly trimmed attacks and releases. The voices have just a touch of vibrato, adding a richness to the vocal texture without intruding on the seamless blend. A program note states that the goal of the choir is to create “an atmosphere of spiritual and musical reflection.” Certainly that mission was accomplished.

Throughout the evening the audience was wrapped in a blanket of total silence, eager to applaud but reluctant to break the mood. No such hesitation at the end, when an extended standing ovation, thankful for the magic, is still rising toward heaven.