Chanticleer Provides Season a Vocal Point

Christmas is full of traditions, and one of them is bad music--or good music performed so often we become sick of it, which is nearly the same thing.

An appearance by the male choir Chanticleer at this time of year is all the more welcome, therefore, because we know its members will not annoy us with either one. Instead, as demonstrated Friday night at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, they bring intelligent performances of fresh music--including some that are about Christmas.

This 12-member a cappella choir from San Francisco, founded in 1978 and rooted in early music, has achieved unusual commercial success. Its members give more than 100 concerts a year around the world and earn awards and sales records for their CDs.

It’s easy to see why: While aggressively expanding their musical horizons from medieval to modern to gospel works, they have clung tenaciously to high standards of performance and a sophisticated taste in repertoire.

With voices ranging from high soprano to basso profundo, their sound is appealing in much the same way a photo in black and white can be. By limiting the colors--but not the range--of their vocal palette, these singers help us focus on the simpler beauties of music: the expressive details of its melody or the structure of its harmony.

Beginning with the purest illustration of this principle, the group opened Friday’s concert with seven “great antiphons”--Gregorian chant intended for Catholic services in the week before Christmas. The music begins with the characteristically unstructured melodies in unison, progressing to singing in octaves and open fifths.

The singers went on to perform music by a range of composers from anonymous medieval monks to the Renaissance giant Tomas Luis de Victoria to the modern Frenchman Francis Poulenc. In each they were flawlessly in tune, neatly synchronized in rhythm and musically thoughtful.

Perhaps the most interesting work on the program was a trio of new settings of Greek Orthodox texts by modern British composer John Tavener. The first, “A Christmas Round,” begins with a single countertenor (male soprano) followed by another, fugue-like, and another, until a dense thicket of interweaving lines quickly develops.

After the chant-like “Today the Virgin,” the choir sung Tavener’s “Village Wedding,” an engaging and wholly original account of an Orthodox marriage ceremony. Challenging and chilling, the work is distinctly Eastern--solos have the warbling quality of Mediterranean music.

Accompanying all of this was an interesting choreography in which the singers rearranged themselves on stage for each piece like reshuffled mah-jongg tiles. In some works, the singers proceeded slowly in circles and intertwining lines, creating a charming visual counterpoint to the music.

Every concert of this sort must end with a rousing crowd-pleaser, and Chanticleer gratified this expectation--characteristically without resorting to the trite or predictable.

After a mix of carols from various times and places, a Christmas medley written by the group’s music director, Joseph Jennings, ended the evening with a luxurious and challenging arrangement flavored with a gospel solo for one of the countertenors.

What else can we say when we get the chance to hear fresh and thoughtful Christmas music: Hallelujah!