MUSIC REVIEW : An OK Chorale Season-Opener

A funny thing happened partway through the Pacific Chorale’s concert Saturday night.

The group sang Charles Ives’ 67th Psalm, a polytonal setting that the women sing in C-major while the men sing in G-flat minor. The group sang the work and it didn’t startle in the slightest. That is because Ives’ polytonal style has become the accepted norm of modern choir music, or at least a certain type of modern choir music. The pieces on the program before the Ives were in this harmonic style, and so were most of those after it. The sound becomes tiring.

This 26th season-opening concert at the Orange County Performing Arts Center purportedly was an exploration of “An American Landscape of Song,” and yet not a note of Copland, Thomson, Rorem, Barber, Bernstein, etc., was heard, not to mention of Gershwin, Berlin, Porter, Foster et. al. Instead, music director John Alexander delved into the music of such giants as Theron Kirk, Rene Clausen and Kirke Mechem.

These composers of--how shall we say?--the second echelon serve a useful purpose in providing singable, well-crafted, chorus-flattering and accessible modern music to church and community choirs across the country. But one doesn’t necessarily want to sit through an entire concert of it.

At least the performances were first-rate. Alexander led the chorale in readings tight in ensemble and resonant in tone. The choir sang effortlessly, gracefully and in expert balance, making its musical points with assurance but without overstatement.

The high points were R. Murray Schafer’s “Epitaph for Moonlight,” which makes titillating rather than grinding use of contemporary textural techniques (a la Xenakis and Ligeti), and Jester Hairston’s arrangement of “It’s All Over Me” with its leaping rhythms and clear, ringing harmonies.

*

The Pacific Chorale Children’s Chorus, led by Lori Loftus, impressed with sparkling performances of challenging music, Lang’s “Cantate Domino” and arrangements of “The Lone Wild Bird” and “This Old Man.”

Elsewhere, from the quasi-profundities of Mechem’s “Island in Space” to the “Our Town” staging of “Amazing Grace,” with soloist Bill George strolling around with his hands in his pockets, the pickings were thin.

The concert concluded with a richly harmonized “Shenandoah” that sounded just like the end of a John Ford movie, and fully choreographed performances of “Cindy” and “Skip to My Lou” complete with hoedowning dancers in Western get-up and yip-yips and yee-haws all around. Well, almost all around.