Four Te Deums, Without Tedium

For the opening of the Pacific Chorale’s 29th season, conductor John Alexander programmed a battle of Te Deums, four total, by Bruckner, Verdi, Dvorak and Persichetti, Saturday night at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

It was an ambitious, even risky, undertaking that came off well. The potential tedium of four Te Deums in a row never set in, thanks to Alexander’s and the Chorale’s sensitive and solid performances, and the works themselves.

Though only a dozen years separate three of the works, none of them was remotely similar. It was amusing to hear the composers’ different takes on the text, which dates to circa 400--one seeing the glass half full, another seeing it half empty; one creating portentous clouds with it, another, bounteous sunlight.

Each Te Deum was wholly characteristic of its composer--Bruckner’s fearful and deeply pious, full of repeated rhythmic patterns and square-cut melody; Verdi’s theatrical and lyrical and dramatically scored; Dvorak’s brilliantly colored, naive and folksy; Persichetti’s (from 1963) direct, athletic and harmonically spicy, yet firmly grounded in tonality.

The Pacific Chorale showed fine a polish throughout, tidy in ensemble, non-strident in tone and responsive to contrasts. Its soft a cappella singing was noteworthy--a blended, pillowy hush.

With more than 150 members in the Chorale, word articulation was sometimes mushy and sonorities diffuse where one wanted compact force.

Still, these were undeniably pleasurable and assured readings all.

The vocal quartet--Susan Alexander, Adelaide Sinclair, Paul L. Johnson, Michael Gallup--revealed no special cohesion in the Bruckner but dispatched their duties well individually.

In the Dvorak, Alexander warbled with steely brightness while Gallup appeared to be suffering some indisposition, but carried on gamely.

Alexander did not always keep the strong Pacific Symphony in reign--especially in the sonorous Bruckner and Dvorak, the orchestra blanketed the choir.