Kaljuste Leads a Program Uplifting to the Spirit

They were right, all those hairy philosophers and grungy denizens of the 1960s--especially the authors of “Hair.” They predicted a spiritual renaissance and return to mystical values by the final years of this century. And it seems to be happening, as Tuesday night at the Irvine Barclay Theatre displayed.

Conducting the 25 members of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and some 30 players of the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, with Britain’s Hilliard Ensemble as guest vocal quartet, To^nu Kaljuste made this near-mystical program compelling. Its spiritual content seemed to touch the large and varied crowd--from hipsters to scholars--and its musical panorama offered sound-variety and contrasts in abundance.

The climax, as promised, at the end of a generous and fulfilling evening, was Arvo Part’s “Litany”, a work in English written for and introduced at the Oregon Bach Festival in 1994.

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In a deceptively uncomplicated musical setting, these 24 prayers--from St. John Chrysostom--offer strong aural appeal and genuine spiritual depth; the musical beauties of the score describe without irony the self-abnegation of these prayers of repentance, creating a kind of ecstasy.

As performed with defined projection by the four men of the Hilliard Ensemble, plus the choir and chamber orchestra, and conducted pointedly by Kaljuste, the piece accumulated all its textual points. One might have wished only to be able to follow the printed words better than through the dim house-lighting.

In the first half of the program, the choir and orchestra separately brought arresting readings to a cappella pieces by Knut Nystedt and instrumental works by Tuur. Then, Tuur’s “Inquietude du fini” combines both choral and orchestral forces with brutal, sometimes serial, atonality to illustrate an end-of-the-world scenario filled with images of destruction and hopelessness.

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After intermission, as a lead into “Litany,” Part’s “Trisagion” for strings emerged as compelling and stable, almost minimalist in its economy. Conductor Kaljuste, as he did throughout the program, underlined with admirable craft the work’s clarity and continuity.