The de Angelis Vocal Ensemble launched its 11th season Saturday afternoon at the Mission Basilica in San Juan Capistrano with an engaging program of music spanning many hundreds of years. Founder and conductor Matthew Gray invited the Gregorian chant-singing Norbertine Fathers of St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado to participate in the historical survey.
The ingenious a cappella program, dubbed “Genesis, Renaissance and Reincarnation” was laid out like this: First the Norbertine Fathers would sing a chant dating to the Middle Ages; then de Angelis would sing a Renaissance setting of the same text (which sometimes incorporated the chant melody, sometimes not) and finally a contemporary version. Then, the performers – the de Angelis Ensemble parting like a curtain to reveal the Norbertine Fathers behind – would repeat the formula on a different text.
By incorporating such a wide variety of styles and time periods within his theme, Gray nicely avoided the staleness of an academic exercise. The performance took place in front of the basilica’s ornate retablo, wrought in cedar and glowing in gold leaf, a visual contribution to aural enjoyment.
The acoustical qualities of the room were also ideal for this music. There was cathedral-like reverberation but also, at least with groups of this relatively small size, an intimate clarity. A halo of sound surrounded the singing, and single notes interacted with the notes previously sung, much as they do when the sustaining pedal is held down on the piano.
Technically speaking, the Norbertine Fathers are not professional singers, and their performance was all the better for it. They sing this music every day in the course of celebrating the offices. Their performance of the chants on Saturday had no falseness, no airs, but rather simplicity and authentic feeling. One wanted to hear more.
De Angelis, 24 strong and fully professional, negotiated the polyphonic thickets of the Renaissance motets and harmonic densities of the contemporary pieces with technical assurance and suave phrasing. No matter how complicated, the music flowed serenely. The sopranos were occasionally called upon to climb into the stratosphere, and if we felt their effort they also reached it.
The Renaissance pieces were by Juan Esquivel, Robert Parsons, Orlando di Lassus, Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, each more ravishing than the last. Maurice Duruflé’s 1960 “Ubi caritas,” a quietly gorgeous piece incorporating a Gregorian theme, was also performed.
One was particularly taken with the little-known Parsons’ “Ave Maria” (from the late 1500s), an opulent swirl of imitative phrases. Indeed, these ancient pieces don’t always go someplace, as modern pieces are in a hurry to do. Rather, they spin and dazzle in place, carving out an ornamental moment in time.
Gray’s selection of contemporary pieces was impressive and heartening. Music by Fredrik Sixten, Javier Bustos, Imant Raminsh, Ivo Antognini, David Conte and Ko Matsushita – all names new to this listener – revealed the composers honoring traditional styles while furthering it harmonically and rhythmically. Matsushita’s “O lux beata trinitas” provided a lively end to the printed program with its spicily dissonant rhythmic motor and slower moving chant.
In a planned encore, the musicians made their way down the aisles and surrounded the audience, the Norbertine Fathers singing the chant “Tantum Ergo” and de Angelis singing David Conte’s version of same, in surround sound.
Contact the writer: 714-796-6811 or tmangan@ocregister.com
