Music Reviews : B-Minor Mass Closes Los Angeles Bach Festival

Bach’s B-minor Mass is hardly everyday music, nor is its performance an everyday event. Nonetheless, while the Sunday finale of the Los Angeles Bach Festival at the First Congregational Church had its compelling moments, there was about conductor Thomas Somerville’s leadership a feeling of routine--not always well-drilled routine--within the context of an orthodox (not quite Romantic, hardly up-to-date scholarly) interpretation.

There were, however, compelling contributions from the vocal soloists: the agile mezzo-soprano of Diane Thomas, with Ralph Morrison’s sparkling violin obbligato, in Laudamus Te; the sweet-toned bounce and pinpoint accuracy of soprano Holly Shaw Price and tenor Thomas Randle in Domine Deus; Kathie Freeman’s dusky alto, wedded to Allan Vogel’s expressive oboe d’amore, in Qui Sedes.

But there was little pleasure to be gained from bass Michael Gallup’s buzzy-woolly Quoniam, notwithstanding Jerry Folsom’s suave horn obbligato and the delightfully dancing bassoonerisms of John Steinmetz and Julie Feves.

The evening achieved distinction when the smallest forces were called for: in the solos and the gentler choruses, which profited from Somerville’s firm, flowing guidance.

Many of the festive numbers, however, proved problematical due to the obfuscating acoustics of the church sanctuary, a chorus too large to allow for optimum flexibility and clarity (most notably in Cum Sanctu Spiritu and Et Resurrexit) and, perhaps, insufficient preparation. Synchronization between chorus and the trumpet trio was a sometime thing, the timpani were reduced to sonic mush, and Lloyd Holzgraf’s organ continuo seemed both overactive and overloud.

The Festival Chorus did, however, produce a thrustingly grand--and cohesive--sound in the majestically paced, rhythmically taut Sanctus and in the final Dona Nobis Pacem.