Fait Accompli

Sometimes, musical projects get lost on the path from germination to finale. Take the case of Emma Lou Diemer’s Mass, being premiered this weekend by the Ojai Camerata.

The noted Santa Barbara-based composer and organist was approached by camerata founding director Charles McDermott seven years back about writing a Mass for his group. Having written liturgical music but never an official Mass, she happily accepted the commission.

The first movement, the Kyrie, was heard in 1993, and another, the Gloria, was heard in 1996.

But the project got lost in the shuffle when McDermott passed directorship of the camerata to a succession of others in the last few years, and Diemer went on to other projects. Bill Wagner, the camerata’s current director, put the idea back in motion, and Diemer got busy completing the work. At long last, it will have its premiere this weekend.

Diemer says that getting back into the flow of the piece “was no problem.”

“I was delighted to get back to it and finish it. When a composer does a major work, it’s much more satisfying than smaller things,” she said.

One change in approach in finishing the work, she said, was that she “purposely wanted to make it a bit simpler in style and difficulty.”

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Diemer writes in an intelligent, yet accessible, style, but she has evolved through many chapters along the way, starting with her studies at Yale. While there, she took music theory classes with the great German emigre composer Paul Hindemith. She resisted the temptation to study composition with Hindemith, because she heard a lot of would-be Hindemiths among his students, and she wanted to heed her own muse.

“At that time, I liked very much his logical way of writing,” she said. “All his lines make sense. And I also liked his return to tonality, with cadences that resolve. Of course, tonality has come back with a bang in the last few years, so I don’t feel guilty writing tonal music anymore.”

It wasn’t always thus. After arriving at UC Santa Barbara in 1970, Diemer began teaching and working with electronic music, and “tried to get totally away from anything having to do with melody or tonality or harmony. It all became textures. But then you gather all your styles together, as you go on and get older, and you use all of it.”

When she spoke from her home this week, she was working on a short piece for the Santa Barbara Symphony, to be performed in May. In this case, it’s a matter of writing to suit the audience and the program, a Tchaikovsky concert. Diemer’s concert opener will recast assorted Tchaikovsky themes into an homage to the composer.

She is also a noted organist and composer of organ work. A recent series of compositions for organ and other instruments, including percussion and trombone, was issued on CD on the RBW label. Organist Joan Devee Dixon commissioned the works.

These days, Diemer’s style is flexible enough to be both pleasing to the ear and to reflect some of her experimental instincts. “I don’t like to get totally atonal and away from rhythmic emphasis and all that,” she said. “It becomes a little too much the same. That’s true of any kind of style that becomes too tonal or too minimal or too atonal. A lot of composers have become quite eclectic, and I fall into that category.”

The Ojai Camerata concert will also include a performance of John Biggs’ “Songs for Baritone and Cello,” featuring baritone James Kenney and cellist Virginia Kron, as well as works by Gregorio Allegris and Gustav Holst.

DETAILS

Ojai Camerata, 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at the Ojai Presbyterian Church, 301 N. Foothill Road. Tickets $12 for adults and $9 for students and seniors; 289-4890.

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Ojai sounds, cont.: On the subject of classical music events of note in Ojai this weekend, there will also be a violin recital in the idyllic confines of the Ojai Retreat on Saturday night.

Young violinist Corinne Chapelle arrives with an impressive resume, as a student of the late Yehudi Menuhin and winner of the Jascha Heifitz Award while studying with Pinchas Zuckerman at the Manhattan School of Music.

Much of her work so far has been from the perspective of a prodigy, having begun playing at age two. She won the Spotlight Award at the Los Angeles Music Center in 1992 and a first prize at the 1996 Julius Stulberg International String Competition. There was a stint at Juilliard, in the pre-college division, performances as a recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestras in the United States and Europe, and she is now studying at USC.

Chapelle is, as they say, on her way, and should provide refined music to match the setting.

DETAILS

Corrine Chapelle, in recital at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Ojai Retreat, 160 Besant Road in Ojai (on the hill above the Ranch House). Tickets are $20; 646-2523.

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Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at joeinfo@aol.com.