Thrilling Music for a Cloudy Day
(03/31/2009) The Choral Society of the Hamptons presented its spring concert on Sunday at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church. With the help of four guest soloists, a guest pianist, Ah Ram Lee, and Avid Williams, the
 Morgan McGivern
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guest conductor, our trusty local choristers brought warmth and light to an otherwise dark and rainy Sunday.
As is their custom for the spring concert, the Choral Society used only keyboard accompaniment. On the one hand, this diminishes the sonic palette that composers use to convey moods and feelings. On the other hand, this paring down shifts the dynamic balance toward the chorus and throws the voices into sharper relief, allowing one to experience the full power of the massed voices and hear details that might be masked by thicker orchestrations.
In Haydn’s Te Deum, which opened the program, the dramatic imitative entries at the opening (meant to evoke the choirs of angels) were full of intensity, while the intricate passagework at the finish was delightfully clear and precise. The virtuosic piano part was nicely handled by Thomas Bohlert, the Choral Society’s accompanist.
Ms. Lee was brought in to accompany the next piece, Beethoven’s Mass in C major, along with Lillian Roberts, a soprano, Carol A. Robinson, a mezzo-soprano, Scott Clausen, a tenor, and Tyrone Aiken singing bass-baritone. The Mass in C is a somewhat underperformed work, perhaps because it makes tremendous demands on the chorus: surprise entrances, difficult chromatic harmonic shifts, and extended passages at the top of singers’ ranges, just to name a few. Beethoven’s intensity and maximalist style brokered little compromise with the physical realities of the human voice.
That being said, the Choral Society gave a strong, convincing performance of this thorny work, negotiating its sudden changes and mood shifts in a way that conveyed the weight of Beethoven’s kaleidoscopic vision. The guest soloists were riveting, each possessing a richness of tone and power to spare. Regrettably, the piano reduction, while well played, was not able to provide the needed depth of tone that helps to put Beethoven’s wrenching contrasts into context.
The final piece on the program, “The Tribulation Suite,” was a rousing collection of spirituals masterfully arranged by M. Roger Holland II, the minister of music at Calvary Baptist Church in Queens. For this piece, the soloists were folded into the ranks of the chorus, but continued to add powerful leads and descants throughout.
In the effective opening, Mr. Holland melds “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” with the plaintive “Motherless Child.” For “I’m Troubled in Mind,” Mr. Holland’s arrangement provides Gershwin-style jazz piano and lush vocal harmonies. “Wade in the Water” starts with “water drops” on the piano turning into a torrent of notes, and continues with a stunning vocal arrangement that builds inexorably from start to finish. The crowd-pleasing “Soon Ah Will Be Done” creates a virtual percussion section out of the low voices, bringing new energy and life to this familiar piece. The concluding chord had the entire chorus singing at maximum volume at the top of their range — a thrilling sound and one of the great joys of choral music.
Bravo to Mr. Holland, and thank you to Maestro Avid Williams and the Choral Society of the Hamptons for introducing this brilliant work to the East End.