MUSIC REVIEW : Currie’s Masterful Farewell Concert

Call it the end of a mini-era: Less than five years after his arrival here, John Currie conducted his final concert with the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

Not all of the musical memories Currie will have left, when he quits the city, and our musical life, this summer, are necessarily wonderful.

In these five seasons, since the Scottish-born conductor’s arrival here in the fall of 1986, our premiere choral organization has performed a lot of less-than-great music, works by composers of the second rank, or below, as well as its traditional repertory.

Yet, Currie’s farewell, Sunday night in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center, marking not only the music director’s final performance but also the end of the Chorale’s 27th consecutive season, turned out to be one of his finest moments.

It was a Mozart program of intense seriousness--rather oddly titled “Mozart ‘91,” as if this organization is the only such body noting the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death. And it was handsomely, stylishly performed, and masterfully conducted.

It showed the 56-year-old Currie in the best possible light, leading both chorale and orchestra with sweeping authority, consistent grace and careful attention to detail. And this special occasion climaxed with as tight and affecting a reading of the Requiem as may be found in this Mozart year.

The secret of this performance lay in the conductor’s almost palpable sense of continuity. Every part of this sometimes disjunct work seemed to connect to every other part. The totality moved forward, from the stoic beginning to the transcendent close, in an apprehendable linearity. For once--the piece certainly does not perform itself--this problematic masterpiece made musical and emotional sense.

The Master Chorale sang with fervor but also with genuine control, words emerging clearly, sections blending with, rather than butting up against, each other. The Sinfonia Orchestra, which in the pre-intermission part of the program had at times swamped the singers, collaborated judiciously, and in resonant agreement with the chorale.

The quartet of solo singers offered Mozartean strengths in their combined and exposed duties. Strongest was Paul Johnson, whose clear tenor delivered the text touchingly. Mary Rawcliffe, Melissa Thorburn and Peter Loehle also added to the sense of scenario coming from Currie’s podium.

By way of overture to this dramatic reading of the Requiem, Currie led a most affecting performance of the “Ave Verum,” K. 618, in which the Master Chorale sang from memory. Then followed the Masonic Funeral Music, K. 477, grimly beauteous in the orchestra’s playing, perfectly inevitable in the conductor’s tight pacing.

This first half closed with a splendid run-through of the Masonic Cantata, K. 623, in which Johnson and Loehle were the felicitously chosen soloists and the Men of the Chorale, though not always as suave of sound as at some times in the past, sang with Mozartean lustiness.

Following the Requiem, Rodney Punt, representing the City of Los Angeles, presented Currie with a scroll. In accepting, Currie characterized this half-decade as “five challenging and turbulent years.”

CURRIE’S AGENDA

In the final months of his Master Chorale directorship, ending Aug. 31, outgoing music director John Currie will prepare the chorus for performances at the Ojai Festival in June, and concerts at Hollywood Bowl in August: a Western-theme program for the men of the chorale under conductor Erich Kunzel, and Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms” and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Simon Rattle. In July, Currie will lead workshops at the Berkshire Choral Institute at Tanglewood in Massachusetts. According to a Master Chorale spokesman, Currie will not return next season as a guest.