Music Reviews : Hall Chorale Presents Two Mass Settings

On its third program of the season, Sunday at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, the William Hall Chorale offered not one but two Mass settings, one a West Coast premiere, both from the 20th Century and both handsomely rendered.

Welsh composer William Mathias’ 15-year-old Missa Brevis opened the program. Set in English, the work is straightforward and easy to comprehend. It employs a tonal but mildly dissonant harmonic language, short, often chantlike melodic materials and textures varying from two-voice counterpoint to full chordal writing. In the end, it disappoints; the often fascinating musical ideas are barely developed

Murice Durufle’s Requiem completed the program. Here, as in the Missa Brevis, the Chorale sang with vibrancy and thorough professionalism. Conductor Hall gets a massive sound from his ensemble, but his singers perform successfully at all dynamic levels: thus the earth-shattering crescendo in the Sanctus. Occasionally the organ, played by Peter Fennema, covered the singers in pianissimo sections, but balances on the whole proved favorable. The words did not always emerge clearly, but Hall’s understanding of the texts came through poignantly at the musical level; his was a richly dramatic reading. Fennema, for his part, delivered the accompaniments solidly and intelligently.

Baritone Donald Christensen brought sensitivity and a full-bodied sound to the short solos in the Domine Jesu Christe and the Libera Me. Mezzo-soprano Debbie Cree sang the Pie Jesu expressively and with great control, though with a rather wide vibrato.