CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW : Requiem Suffers in Move to Concert Hall

Although Gabriel Faure’s Requiem is a staple of church choirs, it is less frequently performed in the concert hall. With the combined resources of the San Diego Symphony and the La Jolla Civic-University Chorus at his disposal, music director Yoav Talmi did not make a convincing case for extracting the devotional work from its customary stained-glass surroundings.

To be sure, there were some rewarding moments in Friday night’s concert at Copley Symphony Hall. In the quiet opening movements, the highly disciplined chorus floated its dulcet, well-blanced sonorities, and the orchestra’s lower strings sympathetically indulged the work’s intimate counterpoint. Talmi’s approach to the work stressed its reflective side, although the orchestra provided a wider range of emotions when asked.

Soprano Sivan Rotem brought vocal purity to her “Pie Jesu” solo, but her brittle, studied phrasing muted her contribution. In his crucial solos, baritone Hector Vasquez displayed abundant vocal assurance. His musical virtues--graceful phrasing, natural declamation, and above all a sense of conviction about the meaning of the text--included everything the chorus failed to achieve. The 78-voice chorus, trained by resident conductor David Chase, sang cool, precise syllables and monochromatic phrases that sounded as if all expression had been eliminated by crafty computer engineering.

Just because Faure did not include the apocalyptic “Dies Irae” text does not mean he eliminated the drama from his Requiem. The composer subtly worked drama and urgency into the musical fabric, expressing it in sudden dynamic explosions and unexpected modulations, the same technique he employed in his esteemed art songs. But when Talmi asked for an ardent forte, for example, at the “Hosanna” in the “Sanctus,” their pallid response was all too easily overpowered by the orchestra.

The Requiem performance was dedicated to Zoltan Rozsnyai, the former symphony music director who died last month, and to conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, who died last week.

Talmi preceded the Requiem with three shorter French works. Berlioz’s highly pictorial “Royal Hunt and Tempest” from his opera “Les Troyens” received an appropriately atmospheric treatment. But in Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” mannered articulations and uneven tempos marred this usually charming program-opener. The orchestra offered a festive, light-hearted run through Berlioz’s “Le Corsaire” Overture, giving the concert’s first half the rousing ending denied by the ethereal final strains of the Requiem.