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April 10 , 2009
Concert Review
Penn State Chamber Singers, March 28, 2009
This
is how I judge that I am listening to a superb choir: On the
opening note of the first piece on Saturday’s concert program, all four
singing parts came in quietly on a word starting with the “k”
sound. Each part sounded like one voice singing—not almost
together, but completely together. With one exception, the
program was totally a capella; even the “pitchpipe” was a human
voice. Director Christopher Kiver has trained this ensemble very
well.
The Penn State Chamber Singers delighted the audience on March 28 with a program of pieces composed between 1889 and 1914, chosen as part of a multidisciplinary project at Penn State. The second annual “Moments of Change” explores the period at the turn of the 20th century from the World Fair in Paris in 1889 to the outbreak of World War I. As the program showed, many different kinds of music developed, and director Kiver explained that the program’s goal that night was to convey a range of vocal colors.
The first piece, an early Saint-Saëns work in two movements, began the evening with the quietly perfect first note I mentioned before. The whole romantic and lyrical piece showed a perfect blend of voices. The second piece was historically and musically quite different: Four secular songs by Johannes Brahms that typified the choral works that community choral societies sang in that period. They were all extravagant love songs, easy to imagine being sung by small groups of talented amateur singers. The sound was full, rich, and fun, and the piano accompaniment fast and bright.
The Penn State Chamber Singers delighted the audience on March 28 with a program of pieces composed between 1889 and 1914, chosen as part of a multidisciplinary project at Penn State. The second annual “Moments of Change” explores the period at the turn of the 20th century from the World Fair in Paris in 1889 to the outbreak of World War I. As the program showed, many different kinds of music developed, and director Kiver explained that the program’s goal that night was to convey a range of vocal colors.
The first piece, an early Saint-Saëns work in two movements, began the evening with the quietly perfect first note I mentioned before. The whole romantic and lyrical piece showed a perfect blend of voices. The second piece was historically and musically quite different: Four secular songs by Johannes Brahms that typified the choral works that community choral societies sang in that period. They were all extravagant love songs, easy to imagine being sung by small groups of talented amateur singers. The sound was full, rich, and fun, and the piano accompaniment fast and bright.
Moving on to the United States and Charles Ives, the audience heard a most unusual composition: the Sixty-Seventh Psalm set in a “bi-tonal” style. It was certainly part of a movement of change in musical style, because the men sang in one key and the women in another, simultaneously. It must have been a real challenge for the singers. Ives wrote this piece in the 1890s, an astonishingly early time for a dramatic innovation that Mr. Kiver noted paved the way for 20th century atonal music. It was fascinating but difficult to listen to; certainly the complexity created a very deep and solemn tone, but it was more of an intellectual experience than an emotional one.
The “Nunc Dimittis” of Gustav Holst, on the other hand, was a joy to hear. Composed for Evensong at Westminster Cathedral, the solemn and moving piece has beautiful harmonies, and it was easy to envision it as part of a service in that grand church or any church. The last two pieces in the program were secular partsongs, two from Charles Villiers Stanford and two from Percy Grainger. All four songs were songs I would have enjoyed singing, so it was easy to see why they had been popular. The first Stanford piece, “Shall we go dance?”, definitely had a madrigal feel to it. The end of the concert was as harmoniously excellent as the beginning, and all the way through the skill of this director and the talent and discipline of the singers came through every moment.
Nancy MacRae
Schellsburg