Sound of Praetorius Rings Out

Michael Praetorius is not exactly a household name, but his huge output--more than 1,000 pieces--had a big influence on German Lutheran music. What seems to be most appealing about Praetorius today is the flexibility he allowed in scoring--mixing the voices and deploying the forces--and on Sunday afternoon in Royce Hall, the Gabrieli Consort and Players’ free-thinking leader Paul McCreesh tried to take full advantage.

The program consisted of a Christmas Mass, a reconstruction of what might have gone on in a big Lutheran church on Christmas morning circa 1620. A lot of the music was drawn from a 1619 collection titled “Polyhymnia Caduceatrix et Panegyrica”--and interlaced among the components of the Mass were grand or intimate organ interludes and settings of Christmas hymns.

For 70 minutes, McCreesh enthusiastically directed traffic, deploying his 13 musicians and dozen singers in various combinations and locales, even in the balconies at times. In a pre-concert talk, McCreesh said that the string, wind and brass orchestrations were his own based on Praetorius’ instructions--and he certainly kept the winds busy alternating between various period instruments.

The Consort’s singers sounded very different from the deliberately colorless early-music voices that we often hear; their voices had richer, riper timbres and more expression. In order to beef up the choral sound and simulate a congregational response, McCreesh added the local Pasadena Classical Singers, who also acquitted themselves well. And Royce’s recently restored pipe organ got a good workout, though it sometimes overwhelmed the voices and the instruments.

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Yet for all of the diverting antiphonal effects, the call-and-response passages, the occasional joyously lilting meters and variety of textures, Praetorius’ music often seemed rather plain, sturdy yet not terribly memorable. But McCreesh saved the best for last. A brisk, powerful, rolling organ voluntary “Nun lob mein Seel” gave way to a spectacular recessional, “In dulci jubilo,” where the brass instruments perched on the edge of the rear balcony dueled with the pipe organ and ensemble in a blazing surround-sound finale. The whooping, cheering audience reacted as if it had just heard a Mahler symphony.