Chanticleer Shows That Virtuosity Is Its Own Reward

Chanticleer, the San Francisco-based, male a cappella ensemble, makes virtuosity its central credo. Smooth, glossy surfaces, rich, exactingly poised sonorities, taut ensemble and pure intonation are the key to everything that it does.

The group can duplicate compact-disc sheen--that high-tech filtered sound-on-silence--in live concert, as it did Tuesday night in a Christmas program in a packed (like sardines) First United Methodist Church in Pasadena.

Chanticleer fascinates and enthralls, then, for much the same reason a fine chocolate or a supermodel or a Rolls-Royce does: through luxurious perfection. But sometimes we want to feel the road, not ride obliviously over it, and if Chanticleer erred at all in its varied program Tuesday, it was in giving it all a certain sameness.

Voices were rarely taxed or pushed to limits and dynamic levels generally stayed in the mezzo-piano range and lower. Tidiness sometimes seemed the main communication. The five countertenors achieved a boys’-choir purity that could be precious.

Still, virtuosity was its own reward. In everything from plainchant sung by candlelight, to 13th century motets, music by Ives, Victoria, Handl and Gaspar Fernandes, a Nigerian song and spirituals, Chanticleer compelled admiration for its discipline, elegance, serenity and sense of fun.

Two new works were also offered. Sung in a rotating circle ensemble configuration, John Tavener’s polystylistic “Village Wedding,” receiving its U.S. premiere on this current tour, emerged seamless and otherworldly in these performers’ hands .

In its local premiere, Steven Sametz’s “Two Medieval Lyrics,” commissioned for Chanticleer by Angelenos Terry Knowles and Marshall Rutter, skillfully used ostinato, dance rhythms and primitive harmonies a la Orff.