Finding Joy in Themes of Loss

Morten Lauridsen’s compulsively listenable “Lux Aeterna” was an instant hit when the Los Angeles Master Chorale premiered it in 1997. A recording by the chorus on a small local label (RCM Records) was nominated for a Grammy last year, and it still sells out of the record shops after a broadcast. People hear it, and they are moved.

“Lux Aeterna” returned to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Sunday night, keeping company with Brahms’ “A German Requiem,” to open the Master Chorale’s new season; and once again it worked its magic. Warm applause was given conductor Paul Salamunovich, his fine singers and his capable Sinfonia Orchestra. But the crowd erupted with contagious joy when Lauridsen bounded on stage for bows, then headed to the Tower Records booths in the lobby.

Like the Brahms “German Requiem,” Lauridsen’s “Lux Aeterna” is a piece about mourning. Both were written over the loss of a mother, both are searches for consolation. Both works pick and choose from biblical texts. His requiem a blessing of those who mourn, Brahms rewards suffering; the payoff for pages of gloomy music are moments of luminous intensity. Lauridsen’s solace is light, and his music has a gentle radiance throughout.

In many ways, “Lux Aeterna” is a sort of “German Requeim”-lite, in the healthy sense of that term--affirmation without all the 19th century guilt. Lauridsen--who is composer in residence of the Master Chorale, a longtime member of the USC composition faculty and a fixture in the world of modern choral music--has found a way to illuminate the Brahmsian glow with contemporary energy sources. He follows Brahms’ model of refashioning old liturgical music, yet he does not sound archaic. The unembarrassed, gorgeous consonances of “Lux Aeterna” are immediately recognizable as coming from an American in the 1990s.

The program notes proclaimed that “Lux Aeterna” reminds us that we’d forgotten to expect the wondrous from modern music, but, in fact, its importance is quite the opposite. This is music that has absorbed the wondrous from our century. It’s unequivocal generosity of spirit, its unfussy ecstatic tone comes not from the past or rejection of the new but from an openness to modern music. It is hard to imagine this music existing without the permission given to be spiritually unconflicted--to say nothing of the sophisticated techniques with which to do so--by Messiaen, Morton Feldman, Henryk Gorecki, John Tavener and many others of our era.

That Brahms came as something of a chore after “Lux Aeterna,” I think, proves it. Brahms’ salvation is hard won, all the while making sure we have first suffered the proper amount. Salamunovich, who led a phosphorescent performance of “Lux Aeterna” from his thoroughly prepared chorus, devoted the same attention to nuanced choral singing in the Brahms. Oddly enough, that lessened rather than heightened theatricality--attention was drawn to a beautifully realized comforting vocal line here or a thrilling fugal passage there, but not to the one being the outcome of the other. The conviction was all in the voices, yet a great deal of the power of the score lies in the orchestra. The Sinfonia accompanied mostly well (if sloppy at the end), but only accompanied.

Hakan Hagegard was the solo baritone, a stellar singer without much to do. His big movement, the third, is a monument of faintly absurd stoicism--the singing of man’s frailty to music in the grand manner of kingly imperiousness. Hagegard--round, firm, solid--was remarkably convincing. The soprano soloist has even less to do; Tamara Matthews offered her sad, sweet song in the fourth movement with formal dignity.

The Master Chorale has chosen not to make use of the new thrust stage that the Los Angeles Philharmonic has created this season in the Pavilion. It is costly in stage-hand labor and lost seats, but if funds can be found, worth it. The Brahms wanted just that extra bit of dimensionality.