Magnificent 'Magnificat' at St. Paul's Church on Hill

Posted 3/23/18

by Michael Caruso

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Chestnut Hill, marked the Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 11, with a Choral Evensong. The principal works, the “Magnificat” and the “Nunc …

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Magnificent 'Magnificat' at St. Paul's Church on Hill

Posted

by Michael Caruso

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Chestnut Hill, marked the Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 11, with a Choral Evensong. The principal works, the “Magnificat” and the “Nunc Dimittis,” were taken from Herbert Howells’ Evening Service for the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster. Parish music director Zach Hemenway, with the help of guest organist Monica Czausz, led the Church’s Adult Choir in admirable renditions of both scores as well as in Henry Purcell’s “Hear my prayer, O Lord” at the opening Orison and the same English baroque composer’s anthem at the Offertory, “Lord, how are they increased that trouble me,” sung in the original Latin.

Howells evoked medieval plainsong in his setting of the traditional text of the “Magnificat,” then enhanced it through wave after wave of imitative counterpoint. He took on a gentler mode for the “Nunc Dimittis,” infusing the denser harmonies with a finely focused intensity that led directly to its cumulative finale. The Choir’s singing under Hemenway’s direction was a model of textural clarity and tonal warmth in both pieces.

In the Purcell anthem, accompanied by organ, ensemble was a trifle uneven, and the tone was a tad stressed. However, Tyler Tajada’s tenor solo was beautifully delivered. Czausz gave an excellent reading to Howells’ “Master Tallis’ Testament” at the opening organ voluntary.

Although regularly overshadowed by music for the Christmas season, choral music settings during Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday are nothing to overlook. Erik Meyer and the Choir of the Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Chestnut Hill, have scheduled a full roster of choral masterpieces beginning with Thomas Morley’s “Nolo Mortem Peccatoris,” Grayston Ives’ “Ride On,” Bob Chilcott’s “Were You There?” and Samuel Barber’s “Agnus Dei” on Palm Sunday. Francis Poulenc’s “Vinea Mea Electa,” Richard Shephard’s “A New Commandment” and Maurice Durufle’s “Ubi Caritas” are set for Maundy Thursday. Meyer’s own setting of “The Passion According to St. John” and John Sanders’ “The “Reproaches” will be sung on Good Friday. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s “Sicut Cervus,” Hans Leo Hassler’s “Cantata Domino,” Peter Latona’s “My hope is arisen” and Peter Hurford’s “Magdalen, Cease from Sobs and Sigh” are scheduled for the Great Easter Vigil.” And works by Carter, Lindley, Ledger, Soriano, J.S. Bach and Thompson are the musical bill-of-fare for Easter Sunday.

Over at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Whitemarsh, Michael Smith and his choristers will sing Ives’ “Ride on in Majesty,” John Ireland’s “Ex ore innocentium” and Marcel Dupre’s “Crucifixion” on Palm Sunday. For Maundy Thursday, the music will include Leighton’s “Prelude on Rockingham,” Latona’s “Antiphons at the Footwashing,” Durufle’s “Ubi Caritas,” Messiaen’s “O Sacrum Convivium” and Walton’s “A Litany.”

Tomas Luis de Victoria’s plainsong setting of “The Passion According to St. John,” Sanders’ “The Reproaches” and Chilcott’s “Were You There?” are set for Good Friday. Chesnokov’s “Salvation is created” and Schutz’s “I Am the Resurrection” are among the highlights for the Great Easter Vigil, and Lisa Lonie will play the Church’s carillon along with Smith at the organ in Leo Sowerby’s “Carillon” on Easter Sunday.

For the more adventuresome, a musical pilgrimage to historic Society Hill’s Old St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church may hit the spot. The city’s oldest Catholic church, founded in 1733 by Jesuit Fathers, Old St. Joe’s is offering a bouquet of seasonal treasures. Music director Mark Bani will lead the parish choir in Handel’s “Lift up your heads” from “Messiah,” “Hosanna to the Son of David” by Thomas Weelkes and “Valet will ich dir geben” by Bach on Palm Sunday.

Music for Holy Thursday includes Bach’s “Adorn Thyself, My Soul, With Gladness,” Durufle’s “Ubi Caritas” and “Tantum Ergo” and Byrd’s “Ave Verum Corpus.” “The Passion According to St. John” will be chanted in organum on Good Friday. The choir will also sing music by Anero, Croce, Bruckner, Palestrina, Stainer and Dubois. For the Great Easter Vigil, the “Exultet,” “Triplum Alleluia,” “Litany” and “Vidi Aquam” will be sung in plainchant, plus choral excerpts from “Messiah.” For Easter Sunday, music by Bach, Charpentier, Bairstow, Thompson and Handel will be sung by the choir, as well as traditional Gregorian chants of the season.

For more information, visit www.stmartinec.org for St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, www.stthomaswhitemarsh.org for St. Thomas, and www.oldstjoseph.org for Old St. Joseph’s.

RACHMANINOF #2

Music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin returned to the podium of the Philadelphia Orchestra March 8-10 to conduct the ensemble in concerts at the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall. The program’s principal work was Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Opus 27. All three performances were recorded “live” by Deutsche Grammophon as part of a project to record all of Rachmaninoff’s symphonies with Nezet-Seguin and the Philadelphians. Deutsche Grammophon is the world’s longest surviving record company, having been established in 1898.

Rachmaninoff composed his Second Symphony between 1906 and 1907. The composer often referred to the Philadelphia Orchestra as his favorite symphonic ensemble under both Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy. Not only did he record his four piano concerti and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Philadelphians under either Stokowski or Ormandy, he even recorded the Second Symphony with himself conducting.

Much has changed in the “sound” of the Philadelphia Orchestra since Ormandy’s departure as its music director in 1980 as a result of the personal tastes of successors Muti, Sawalisch, Eshenbach, Dutoit and now Nezet-Seguin. Still, in the Rachmaninoff repertoire of the Second and Third Symphonies, the “Symphonic Dances” and the five works for piano & orchestra, the legacy of the Stokowski/Ormandy sonic tradition resurfaces almost entirely intact. It reminds me of that sunken cathedral Debussy evoked in his first book of Preludes for Piano.

The string section can still shimmer sumptuously as it breathes the long phrases of those Russian steppes the composer never forgot. The woodwind choir can still glisten with the delicacy of those northern lights of a Russian winter. The brass choir can still conjure up the martial splendor of a thousand years of the Romanov dynasty of czars before their demise during the Russian Revolution. And the timpani can still rumble with the threat of thunder.

Most important Saturday evening was the complete commitment of the ensemble’s young maestro to the super-charged emotions Rachmaninoff invested in the music he composed. The aching heartbreak, ferocious intensity and devastating abandonment of the score’s first three movement all came together in the scintillating triumph of the Symphony’s fourth movement. While never losing sight of that sweeping finale, Nezet-Seguin also highlighted Rachmaninoff’s remarkable command of thematic development and contrapuntal texture.

Saturday evening’s interpretation for a packed house was distinctly different from those conducted by Ormandy and the recordings I own by both Ormandy and Charles Dutoit. Yet it was equally as convincing as any of those because Nezet-Seguin never asks the Philadelphians to do anything with which he isn’t totally convicted, and they never fail to deliver what he asks for. As usual, they delivered it beautifully.

Prior to intermission, Nezet-Segyuin was joined by violinist Janine Jansen for the American premiere of Michel van der Aa’s Violin Concerto, composed especially for the soloist. Although nowhere near as inspired, its overall structure reminded me of Samuel Barber’s beloved Violin Concerto. The Aa’s first movement is dramatic, its second lyrical and its third skittish. Jansen played it brilliantly, and Nezet-Seguin accompanied her efficaciously.

You can contact NOTEWORTHY at Michael-caruso@comcast.net. To read more of NOTEWORTHY, visit www.chestnuthilllocal.com/Arts/Noteworthy.