MUSIC REVIEW : L.A. Master Chorale Closes Season

Originally scheduled for May 2 but postponed because of the riots, the final program of the Los Angeles Master Chorale season took place Sunday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

The concert also marked the end of Paul Salamunovich’s first year as music director, and the audience and singers registered their strong approval at the end of a long and demanding program.

Salamunovich conducted a core of about 35 singers in the a cappella first half, with composers ranging from Byrd to Victoria. (After a short speech from the stage, he added to the printed program Victoria’s “Ave Maria” as a tribute to chorale founder Roger Wagner, who, he said, was in the hospital.)

After intermission, the full 120-voice chorale, with some members and contingents of brass players placed at the sides of the first balcony, sang antiphonal music by Gabrieli and Palestrina.

Then the full forces joined on stage for other Renaissance music, venturing a lusty “Jubilate Deo” by Gabrieli to close the program.

The small chorus adapted readily to the differing stylistic demands of Dufay, Des Prez, Tallis, Byrd and other Renaissance composers, gently floating polyphonic lines, singing with clean diction but sometimes sounding thin in the middle and strained at the top.

Their best marriage of sound and sense perhaps occurred in the Benedictus of Palestrina’s Missa Brevis of 1570.

The full chorale sang with sensitivity, strength and wide dynamic range, evoking myriad colors and creating a feeling of solid, towering architecture, especially in Gabrieli’s Magnificat.

But a few quibbles: The predominantly religious programming led to a kind of unsettling thematic recycling. In the second half alone, we went from a scene at the Cross (Palestrina’s Stabat Mater) and a lament for the slain Christ (Victoria’s “Victimae Paschali Laudes”) to the Resurrection (Clemens non Papa’s “Ascendens Christus”) and then back again to the Crucifixion (Antonio Lotti’s “Crucifixus”). A straighter emotional line would have been preferable.

Also, when Salamunovich ventured into secular repertory, he led it with the same earnestness he devoted to the religious works. Luca Marenzio’s humorous madrigal “Contava la Piu Pastorella,” for instance, with its portrayal of a dizzy-headed man unable to decide between the charms of two women, evoked no humor or wit from him. It isn’t that serious a piece.