ALEXANDER CONDUCTS CHORALE

Scorn not the steadily developing musical life of Orange County. On a good weekend, genuine sophistication thrives in that region.

It certainly did Friday night, when the Pacific Chorale, conducted by its music director, John Alexander, gave the first of two performances of a program devoted to Hungarian composers in the large, airy and acoustically gratifying sanctuary at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach.

This was no halfhearted performance of standard repertory, attended dutifully by friendly supporters of the arts.

In an agenda of important choral statements by Zoltan Kodaly, Gyorgy Ligeti and the first musical Hungarian--the day he was born, Hungary as a nation did not yet exist--FerencLiszt, the 109-voice chorale, assisted aggressively by the Orange County Pacific Symphony, made those statements ring true. And an attentive and hard-listening audience heard and recognized the achievement.

Liszt’s oft-neglected “Missa Solemnis,” a product (1854) of his Weimar period, actually bridges, without reference to Wagner, the harmonic styles of Schubert and Richard Strauss. It is a work of musical breadth, original melodies, religious drama and wondrous, pointed moments.

As conducted by Alexander, its strengths were delivered with conviction and high polish. The chorale produced stunning climaxes, touching pianissimos, perfectly blended a cappella passages, and seemed in all moments to mean its words. And, throughout its broad dynamic and color range, it never made an ugly sound.

Placed in the least resonant part of the otherwise bright hall, the accomplished quartet of vocal soloists--Su Harmon, Janet Smith, Paul Harms and Dennis Houser--nevertheless met all challenges competently; at the start of the Benedictus, in particular, Smith made creamy sounds that richly communicated the text.

Another neglected masterwork, Kodaly’s “Te Deum of Buda Castle” (1936), received an inspiring musical reading which also showed off the range and versatility of the chorus, plus strong playing from the Pacific Symphony. Here also, the vocal quartet meshed handsomely in the total performance.

The brief centerpiece in this ear-opening program was Ligeti’s 11-minute, a cappella “Lux Aeterna,” sung effortlessly and ethereally by the 44-member, chorale-derived Pacific Singers.