On Tuesday, the Festival returned to St. Andrew's Church for a very special early evening concert by the Elora Festival Singers: a complete performance of the Vespers by Rachmaninoff.
I've previously discussed this work in my companion blog, Off the Beaten Staff, at: Holy Week Part 4. That post was put up during Holy Week 2012 (April 7 to be precise).
The work we know as Vespers is more properly called the All-Night Vigil, since it is a musical setting of 15 of the canticles sung in the Russian Orthodox Church during the Vigil service which begins with Vespers on Holy Saturday, and ends at dawn on Easter Sunday. Although the work was composed and performed in 1915, no complete recording was ever made till 1973 and even now a complete performance is a relatively rare event in the west. Most commentators concur that there is no finer work of music ever composed for the Russian Orthodox liturgy.
The fifteen movements together last about an hour, and are all sung unaccompanied. The texts are, of course, in Russian and ought never to be sung in any other language (in my humble opinion). Much of the effect of the music depends on the interaction of the distinctive sounds of the Russian language with the musical lines. Speaking of the lines, the bass parts in particular pose huge challenges, stretching down as low as a low B-flat (which is certainly well below the cellar of my baritone range!). Even in Russia, renowned for deep basses, finding singers who can musically sing these notes is a challenge!
It was for these reasons that I commented (in my other blog) that only a Russian choir could do justice to this music. I was eager to hear the Vespers again, certainly, but also curious to know if my previous comments would be vindicated or shot down in flames! The answer is mixed.
Certainly the choir's director, Noel Edison, left nothing to chance. The singers were carefully prepared. Interpretive choices were thoughtful, and for the most part successful. Tonal blend and Russian diction were immaculate. The striking bell-like sounds heard in several of the canticles were very clearly conveyed. One of the trickiest aspects of Vespers is to make the crescendos and diminuendos integral to the music, so that the climaxes seem to flow naturally from the text rather than being imposed from without. In this, both Edison and his choristers were very successful indeed, and the crescendos blossomed into full flower without any apparent effort. It was a true joy to hear this challenging masterwork so expertly and lovingly performed. The mezzo-soprano solo and the several tenor solos were all very well sung, although (sadly) the programme leaflet did not give the names of the soloists.
In so far as this performance fell short of perfection, it was due mainly to factors beyond the control of the singers and conductor. In a Russian choir, there is a natural tilt towards darker, richer voices. That is, you will get far more basses than baritones, and far more contraltos than mezzo-sopranos -- a fact which lends the music its rich, dark warmth. In Canada, the reverse tends to be true. The bass and alto sections both did admirable work, but there's no getting away from the fact that the brighter tones tended to dominate the overall sound picture. The bass section in particular has to function like a firm hand, supporting the entire ensemble from its position low down in the scale. The singers certainly did their best, but there were passages where a firmer bass tone was essential, and was not clearly heard. In that infamous pianissimo scale down to that brutal low B-flat, the singers gradually fell away as the line descended, and at the end there were (I think) only two still sounding, and they were having trouble.
The other vocal problem was the simple fact that the tone sounded rather thin when the 24-voice choir divided into multiple parts. Certainly a gigantic choral body is not needed, but a group of (say) 32-40 singers would, I think, be able to give a much more impressive account of the divided passages. As well, there were a couple of numbers that I felt Edison simply took too fast, and the final chorus was disfigured by unnecessary tempo variations.
Even with these minor drawbacks, this was unmistakably a great performance of one of the true masterpieces of choral music, and the near-capacity audience on Tuesday night were certainly fortunate to have heard it performed with such skill and dedication.
No comments:
Post a Comment