Music Review : Pacific Chorale Offers Unforgiving French Program

The Pacific Chorale, under the direction of John Alexander, presented a vocally unforgiving program of 19th- and 20th-Century French devotional music Saturday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The chorale rose stunningly to many of the challenges but could not conquer them all.

The choir’s greatest strength on this occasion lay in its eminent control during a cappella passages. Through finely drawn, ever-balanced dissonances, the group conveyed a sense of deeply felt spirituality in Messiaen’s unaccompanied “O Sacrum Convivium.” Similarly, sections of Poulenc’s “Stabat Mater” that leave the chorus completely exposed emerged with telling thoughtfulness.

Here, “O quam tristis” received a simple and moving reading. The opening polyphony to “Fac, ut ar deat cor meum” (“Make my heart burn so”) also unwound evocatively, apparently freed by the absence of the Pacific Symphony’s partnership, even in a score so rarely competitive as this.

In contrast, Psalm 47--as set by Florent Schmitt for soprano, chorus, orchestra and organ--elevates the instrumentalists to equal, sometimes predominant participants alongside their vocal cohorts.

The work proceeds in waves of loudly dramatic climaxes, full of much “shouting to God,” with everything from tuba to tambourine, and fraught with impediments to choral clarity. Simultaneously beset by demands of register, choral tone quality did not survive some of these energetic assaults.

Soloist Benita Valente held her own valiantly, however, from her relatively quiet entrance to her dynamic exclamations over full forces, all in feverish confrontation.

Valente’s reliable soprano further complemented the chorus in her solos for the “Stabat Mater,” where she was attentive to musical nuance, if not always theatrically believable.

The concert had begun with “Cantique de Jean Racine,” by Faure, in a seamless, flowing performance that built to heroic proportions with the aid of a stylishly astute orchestration by USC professor James Hopkins.