WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL CHOIR : ENGLISH MUSIC AT THE PAVILION

An embarrassment of English vocal riches is falling on Southern California.

Last week, in the high-ceilinged splendor of First Congregational Church, it was the Choir of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. Next week (on Thursday), under the metallic, round ceiling of Beckman Auditorium at Caltech, it will be the Wells Cathedral Choir from Somerset.

Tuesday, in the Pavilion of the Music Center, the 30-voice, male choir of Winchester Cathedral made its first Southern California appearance. This was not the first day of spring, but, given the pure sounds, emotional resonance and musical insights produced by this most accomplished and serious ensemble, it might have been.

Two areas of musical pleasure converge here: the English choral tradition, as old in some places--like Winchester Cathedral--as 900-plus years, but still alive and vibrant; and an indigenous musical literature in which is combined the work of gifted composers with great poets.

Led by its longtime leader, Martin Neary, the splendid cathedral ensemble--its men and boys solid in vocal achievement, firm in balances, tone and dynamic resource, radiant in expression--reilluminated this convergence for an audience apparently ready to receive. Many listeners attended this Los Angeles Philharmonic-sponsored event; no coughers or hackers seemed to be among them.

Though each half of the choir’s program ended with a thoroughly professional reading of a bona fide, sacred work--Bach’s motet, “Der Geist, hilft unsrer Schwachheit auf,” and Mozart’s Missa Brevis in D, K. 194--the special joys in this performance lay in the singing of pieces by William Byrd, Robert Whyte, Thomas Weelkes, Henry Purcell, Jonathan Harvey, Benjamin Britten, John Tavener, Elizabeth Poston and Charles Villiers Stanford (the last two as encores).

The texts of most of these pieces are not light or carefree; they deal in weighty, otherworldly or theological matters--all the more reason their messages should be wrapped in the purest of aural packages, the most restrained expressions and the clearest word-delivery, as they were on Tuesday.

Under Neary’s unflagging leadership, the choir, including several secure (if not always handsome-toned) soloists, brought religious fervor and a projected sense of musical line to all of this program.

In Purcell’s noble but prolix “Funeral Music (for Queen Mary II)” and the Bach and Mozart works, the English musicians were assisted neatly by small ensembles drawn from the L.A. Philharmonic, as well as by their own organist, Timothy Byram-Wigfield.