Chorale Matches ‘Miserere’s’ Intensity

The audience applauds. The performer smiles. It is a natural, probably Pavlovian reaction.

But Sunday night, seated close to the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, I noticed only a few weak smiles on the faces of the many singers in the Master Chorale following the performance of Henryk Gorecki’s “Miserere.” Most members of the chorus looked emotionally drained; a few were close to tears.

Written 20 years ago during a period of political oppression in Poland, “Miserere” is a blunt, powerful, direct, exhaustively physical expression of the Solidarity movement, which rose to counter that oppression. Gorecki calls for a very large a cappella chorus, of at least 120 singers. There are but five words of text. For 30 minutes the chorus sings a subtly varied but harmonically static chant line on the first three, “Domine Deus noster” (Lord our God).

“Miserere” begins with the deepest basses standing and singing barely above the threshold of audibility. Then more basses stand and add a slight variation to the chant at the interval of a third higher.

As more sections of musicians slowly rise, the music rises too, each time by a third. It takes 20 minutes for the full chorus to be on its feet. For another 10 minutes, the chorus continues to sing “Domine Deus noster,” faster, louder, in waves of ardent hammering and tender imploring, always with unchanging harmony.

The ethereal resolution, as Gorecki finally unlocks the final two words of the text, “Miserere nobis” (Lord have mercy on us), is a vocal halo that envelops the hall, a final three heavenly minutes of ecstatic supplication.

In remarks to the audience, Grant Gershon called “Miserere” one of the greatest choral works of the past 50 years. The Master Chorale sang it for him with an intensity, concentration and devotion that was its own political and spiritual statement.

Gershon, midway through his first season as music director of the Master Chorale, labeled this concert “Triumphs of the Spirit.”

A bit hokey, perhaps, but not untrue.

The evening’s other work was Mozart’s Requiem, which Gershon dedicated to the memory of Peter Hemmings. The founder of Los Angeles Opera gave the conductor his first job out of school.

As if inspired to live up to that promise, Gershon led a performance that had all the dramatic intensity of opera.

He inspired expressivity from soloists--soprano Susan Montgomery, alto Tracy Van Fleet, tenor Robert MacNeil and bass Jinyoun Jang--focus and fire from the Master Chorale Orchestra, warmth and zeal from his chorus.

Throughout the performance, in fact, Gershon reminded us that the musical language of the Requiem is close to that of “Don Giovanni.” Gershon’s exciting and probing reading seemed as though it were a continuation of Mozart’s opera and the Don’s defiance and final awe in facing his death.

Mozart didn’t live to finish the Requiem. Usually we put up with the unsatisfactory ending devised by Mozart’s pupil Franz Xaver Sussmayr.

Robert Levin, the pianist and Mozart specialist, has improved upon Sussmayr, and Gershon used Levin’s recent version. But still the sense of incompleteness lingers, and perhaps that was the deeper message of this evening.

The spirit’s triumph over oppression and death is an ongoing struggle. But this is the most important struggle of all, and the fact that Gershon embraces it with the brave enthusiasm that he does enriches our musical life.

The Master Chorale is going places.