MUSIC REVIEWS : A Stately Survey of Choral Works

Few choirs boast the kind of history that the King’s College Choir has. The connectedness of that centuries-old tradition was very much apparent Friday in its stately and unhackneyed program at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.

Virtually a roll call of English choral glories from William Byrd to William Walton, the survey lacked only the contributions of living composers. Under the direction of Stephen Cleobury, the 30 singers treated it all with assured style, focused energy and unflappable musicianship.

The pristine qualities of its boy trebles dominate the King’s College sound. Light and flexible but quite capable of making even so vast and intractable a space as the Crystal Cathedral ring, the choral production proved perfectly matched to the music at hand.

The chief peaks among an evening of high points might have been “A Litany” by Walton, and Purcell’s “Hear My Prayer” and “Lord, How Long Wilt Thou Be Angry,” notable for an amazing degree of expressive nuance in individual lines. Cleobury enforced a consistent sensitivity to the urgencies of the texts, and there was no routine evident in the well-drilled singing.

Organ scholar Christopher Hughes accompanied some of the selections--most notably Britten’s “Hymn of St. Columba”--with pertinent flair, getting effective combinations from the resident instrument. At times, the organ overwhelmed the choir, but such miscalculations were rare.

In his solo spots, Hughes asserted a countervailing French tradition. The first movement of Vierne’s Third Symphony had uncommon force and coherence in his hands, and his account of Dupre’s “Evocation III” had both insinuating rhythmic verve and massive, full-trumpets power.

In fact, after the shaking Hughes gave the building there, a persistent electromechanical hum marred the rest of the performance, and a cipher as ill-timed as possible afflicted the quietly awed close of Charles Stanford’s “For lo, I raise up.”