Review: World premiere among old Chamber Chorus musical friends

For its annual Christmas-themed concert this past Sunday, the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus and its conductor Philip Barnes performed at Second Presbyterian Church in the Central West End.  Its most recent performance there was in February 2020, the SLCC’s last concert before the COVID-19 pandemic-induced shutdown of live concerts.  The program featured selections by 13 composers, with a strong English-language focus of 2 American, 7 British, and 2 Australian composers, with a 16th-century Dutch composer and a 19th-century German composer to fill out the roster.  All but one of the printed program selections were works that the SLCC has sung in past seasons, but because of the unique place of the SLCC in the regional music scene, none of these ‘repeats’ were anything like the usual holiday fare that US classical music organizations trot out each Christmas season, except for the encore.  The concert’s one new selection was also a world premiere with the composer present, though not the poet as originally planned, for reasons to follow.

The opening selection was the first of the “Scenes from the Holy Infancy” by the American composer (and critic) Virgil Thomson (1896-1989), using texts from the book of Matthew.  The first section, ‘Joseph and the Angel’, set a passage from Matthew 1:18-25, where Joseph learns from an angel that Mary is to carry and bear the Christ Child.   Since the text is in prose rather than verse, the music fittingly starts in a recitative-like fashion, before taking a more spacious pace in its central section.  A setting of the Irish traditional “Wexford Carol” by John Rutter (born 1945) followed, a notable contrast with the Thomson is its more flowing, smooth (dare one say sometimes too smooth?), and sentimental mood.  The third selection featured the first based on an original text, “Long, Long Ago” by Herbert Howells (1892-1983), set to a poem by John Buxton (1912-1989) written when Buxton was a prisoner-of-war in Germany in World War II.   Howells’ tonal language is more complex than that used by Rutter in the “Wexford Carol”, and his treatment of Buxton’s text certainly less “sentimental”.

The subsequent set of three works focused on Bethlehem, one work by each of the Anglo nations on the roster, with “Bethlehem Down” by the British composer Peter Warlock (born Philip Heseltine, 1894-1930), “The Little Town Where Jesus Was Born” by the Australian composer William James (1895-1977), and “In Bethlehem, That Noble Place” by the American composer Paul Nelson (1929-2008).  Warlock’s setting of a text by one of his drinking buddies, Bruce Blunt, is notably spacious and devotional in pace, given that Blunt and Warlock wrote the carol strictly for money (in order to drink).  James’ treatment of words by John Wheeler is more extrovert and quicker-paced, with a hymn-like feel at the close.  Nelson’s work, mainly in English with a few lines in Latin, both starts and ends with a bang, so to speak, to make for a sequence that builds up the volume nicely.

Mr. Barnes then ceded the podium to each of the SLCC’s two assistant conductors for one selection each.  Orin Johnson conducted “Iona” by the British composer Edmund Walters (1931-2003), with a text inspired by the Scottish island of that name, and a quieter, hymn-like mood that contrasts effectively with the previous set.  Caroline Ibnabdeljalil then directed “Christmas 1914” by the Australian composer, though long resident in the UK, Malcolm Williamson (1931-2003), an effective setting (perhaps the only one, according to Mr. Barnes) of a text by the British writer and politician Hilton Young (1879-1960) during his naval service in World War I.  

The first half closed with the concert’s featured world premiere, “Seeking You” by Kerensa Briggs (born 1991), the current SLCC composer-in-residence soon to finish her time in the post, with a text by Charles Anthony Silvestri (born 1965), a poet who is on the faculty of Washburn University in Lawrence, KS.  Mr. Silvestri’s poem tells of an unidentified pilgrim who evidently journeys to meet the Christ Child in the manger in Bethlehem, although his poem does not overtly state this.  That element of understatement attends the text, which could tip into overt sentimentality but does not.  Ms. Briggs matches this understatement with her music in its dignified restraint, which matches the tone of the words and likewise does not go for the obvious.  She ends her work with a surprise mid-air unresolved chord, for a moment of ambiguity despite the generally straightforward devotional sense of the text.  It should be mentioned that Mr. Silvestri originally was to be present for this premiere, and to recite his poem before the music.  However, a recent diagnosis of a severe medical condition prevented him from traveling.  Mr. Barnes read the poem in his place.

The second half of the concert began with the program’s oldest music, “Omnes de Saba” by the Renaissance-era Dutch composer Orlandus Lassus (1532-1594), a setting of texts from Isaiah LX:6 and Psalm 71, and a attention-grabbing, forte opener for a series of works that shift attention to the journey of the Three Kings / Wise Men with frankincense, gold, and myrrh to the infant Jesus.  The next set of three works continued with this theme, with the second section of Virgil Thomson’s “Scenes from the Holy Infancy”, “Die Könige” (“The Kings”) of the German composer Peter Cornelius (1824-1874), and “The Three Kings” by the British-born, Canada-resident composer Healey Willan (1880-1968).  The second section of the Thomson, “The Wise Men”, sets text from Matthew 2:1-12, and feels quite different from the first section, in that the second section is very much a scena for tenor with choral backing, rather than a full choral sing.  The Cornelius featured its own tenor solo (different solo singer), and is very much in the 19th-century German Romantic style.  The Willan work sets a text by Laurence Housman (younger brother of A. E. Housman, for devotees of English poetry), and features the ladies of the chorus more prominently compared to earlier works in the program, at least to this listener.  Willan also nicely worked in a crescendo and diminuendo mid-way through, to vary the mood.

The next ‘set’ of two works paired the third and final part of the Virgil Thomson work with another selection by William James.  The third section of the Thomson work, “The Flight Into Egypt”, was the most outgoing of the three, even with the grimness of part of its subject matter (Herod’s slaughter of the innocents), and distinctly different in mood from the first two sections.  This whole experience was clearly different from hearing the Thomson as a single entity, but in this context, the distribution of the movements throughout the concert worked very well.  The following work by William James, “The Three Drovers”, to another text by John Wheeler, gives a Down-Under twist to the story of the Three Kings, with three cattle drovers instead, and its own extrovert feel.    

The last work on the printed program was “The Shepherd’s Carol” by Bob Chilcott (born 1955), which brought down the volume with its quieter start compared to the previous works, but built up its own crescendo by the 4th verse, before its understated close.  The encore brought the concert’s one familiar selection, Andrew Carter’s arrangement of “I Wonder As I Wander”, for a thoughtful and subdued close, and as Mr. Barnes noted, a wry reference to the fact that the SLCC “wanders” to various venues each season.  The SLCC was on very fine, solid form, as is standard with them, and also in their tradition of walking less familiar musical paths compared to most classical music organizations at Christmas time.