Master Chorale Revives Haunting Cantata

Good things deserve revival, so Paul Salamunovich, beginning the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 37th season and his own farewell season as its music director, chose to bring back Dominick Argento’s lovable, masterly “Te Deum” to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Sunday night. It was a joyous occasion.

The Master Chorale and its adjunct instrumental body, the Sinfonia Orchestra, first essayed the colorful, populist cantata seven years ago, then repeated it in 1997.

It is a handsome, imposing mixture of liturgical Latin and secular Middle English texts in a pungent, post-Impressionistic, accessible harmonic style--sort of a rich man’s “Carmina Burana,” without the bumping and grinding--which offers melodious and haunting beauties along with compelling rhythms.

Salamunovich clearly loves it, and the Master Chorale--though its word delivery sometimes makes one wish for supertitles--sings it fervently, and with the broadest, most articulate use of dynamics any composer could hope for.

The highly polished performance Sunday will be repeated for a CD recording later this fall, to be released in the spring through the sponsorship of the Ahmanson Foundation.

Splendid performances from chorale members and the orchestra also enlivened the first half of this festive event. It began in deep seriousness: Solid musical values and tight tonal blending underlined the spiritual content of Mozart’s masterly “Kyrie,” K. 341; the accomplished Sinfonia Orchestra here shone.

And the many and subtle charms of Maurice Durufle’s “Cum Jubilo” Mass (for male voices only) were brought to life engagingly in Salamunovich’s engrossing reading, one that followed the textual contours of the piece while illuminating its long musical lines.

The men of the chorale consistently delivered both genuine power and rich mellowness to Durufle’s flowing musical lines. The effortless and polished baritone soloist was Jim Drollinger.