Focused browsing nets compelling new setting of Christmas carol 'There is No Rose of Such Virtue'

There are dozens of new Christmas carols published every year. Many are good; few have any sort of sticking power, as Christmas is a weird time for music: because it comes up every year, the musician wants to try something a little different next year; because it comes up only once a year, the listener wants to hear something as sweet, gooey and familiar as a box of Turtles.

I was trolling for new carols that can challenge as well as satisfy, and thought a new, seven-part setting of the anonymous Medieval poem "There is No Rose of Such Virtue" by American composer (and Portland State University prof.) Bonnie Miksch is a worthy candidate.

Here's the text (with a bit of translation), followed by Miksch's setting and, then, the original in Middle English, as briskly sung by the Mount Holyoke (College) Chamber Singers two weeks ago:

There is no rose of such virtue
As is the rose that bare Jesu:
Alleluya.

For in this rose contained was
Heaven and earth in little space:
Res miranda. (which tanslates as "wonderful circumstance")

By that rose we may well see
That he is God in person three:
Pari forma. ("equal beauty")

The angels sung the shepherds to:
"Gloria in excelsis Deo",
Gaudeamus. ("Let us rejoice")

Leave we all this worldly mirth,
And follow we this joyful birth:
Transeamus. ("Let us cross over")

Members of Toronto Symphony behind best-of-Messiah concert at St. James Cathedral today at 4 p.m.

I received an invitation earlier this week to a one-hour concert 17 members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra are presenting with the Mississauga Choral Society at St. James Cathedral: a (substantial) selection of solo and choral highlights from Messiah, along with four popular Christmas songs -- including "Jingle Bells," which will be conducted by a child from the audience.

The concert, benefitting the United Way of Greater Toronto, has been the musicians' annual Christmas donation to the city since 1999.

I can't think of a finer way to take a break from the bustle of The Weekend Before Christmas (which I think could be the title for a psychological thriller).

Finally a Messiah worthy of a 21st century concert hall yet true to the clarity of period-performance standards

Photo: John Loper

I have to comment further on last night's premiere of Andrew Davis's re-orchestrated Messiah at Roy Thomson Hall.

Besides the fact that it was well-played and well-sung, the reason I gave this performance four stars out of four has to do with this paragraph in my review:

With this premiere, Davis is shouting out to the world that the modern orchestra can, and should, unabashedly perform Baroque music using all the instruments available to the modern composer.

What makes Davis's work important -- not a hubristic attempt to mess up a classic -- is how it marks a moment in history where the modern symphony orchestra can stop apologising for itself. Davis has drawn a line more momentous than we can imagine.

I owe my deep love of Baroque opera, orchestral and vocal music to the period-performance movement. But its very success has meant one almost never hears Bach or Corelli or Handel or Lully performed by modern orchestras. When they do program this music, they feel compelled to vastly reduce the number of instruments on stage.

Two dozen strings, a harpsichord and an oboe don't make much of a sonic impact in a place like Roy Thomson Hall. The Mendelssohn Choir, outnumbering instruments at least threefold, have so sing as if afraid to wake a cranky baby.

No matter how nicely balanced, impeccably bowed, and clearly articulated the performance, it's going to look and sound weak compared to Tafelmusik's, which is performed in a space a fraction the size of Thomson Hall.

I've wished for years that the Toronto Symphony would, one day, be brave enough to re-acquaint its audience with the wow factor of the Big Messiahs of a century ago, which used everything the modern choral society and symphony orchestra could muster.

I was also hoping that, if this happened, the person leading the performances would be able to figure out how to do this without making us wade through the awful, thick sludge of those old interpretations. 

In case you need to know what I'm talking about, here is Sir Henry Wood leading the 3,500-strong Handel Festival chorus and orchestra at the Crystal Palace in 1926 in "Let us break their bonds" -- followed by a typical period-sensitive modern performance, this one from last spring at the intimate Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, England, conducted by Marios Papadopoulos:

I wish I could post some audio samples to show how cleverly Davis has distributed the instrumental voices among the different sections of the orchestra. It's an amazing feat of arranging that barely disturbs Handel's overall harmonic and contrapuntal structure. Davis is looking for colour, while giving us the volume to properly fill a modern concert hall. It also allows the big choir to sing out convincingly.

Davis clearly knows how to work a symphony orchestra, but his arrangement of Messiah needs a bit more work. The more instrumental textures one juggles, the greater the chances of running into small clashes of texture. I counted a half-dozen bumpy transitions between sections of music, which would be easily solved with eraser and pencil.

As I mentioned in my review, the one thing that absolutely didn't work was Davis's use of percussion. My notes refer to "stray drumbeats" in "Thus saith the Lord," "stray cymbal" in "But who may abide" and "errant bell that sounds like an antique lift stopping at my floor" for "The people that walked in darkness." (The errant bell was a xylophone, I think.)

With a couple of exceptions, the percussion interventions sound like afterthoughts, not like they organically belong to the score. The orchestration should not make one burst out laughing if the text doesn't call for it. Davis was timid here and, I think, should simply remove the percussion parts altogether. Because the rest of his score is so fine.

I'm thrilled that Messiah lovers in Toronto have an incredible choice this year: to hear the tried-and-true period version of Messiah perfected by Tafelmusik and Ivars Taurins, or to explore a different aural world with the Toronto Symphony. Both allow us to not only enjoy Handel's Messiah, but also to enjoy and appreciate the full potential of performers and venue.

An organist's nightmare: How not to end the Hallelujah Chorus

Hannaford Band and Amadeus Choir expand Christmas concert to two nights at Metropolitan United

The Canadian Opera Company's Richard Bradshaw used to get a charge out of his annual, pro bono stand on the podium for the Hannaford Street Silver Band and Amadeus Choir Christmas blowout at St. James Cathedral. The packed building belting out carols made it really feel like Christmas.

David Briskin, music director of the National Ballet Orchestra, is now leading the boisterous pack. Tenor Richard Margison is the guest of honour, the venue is Metropolitan United Church (at Queen & Church Sts.) and the celebration has grown to two dates -- tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m.

There's no better way to get into the holiday spirit.

Full-price tickets are $45 at the St. Lawrence Centre box office.

On CBC Radio 2 today: COC's fabulous Death in Venice, followed by choirs singing Pärt and Schafer

There are two great reasons to listen to CBC Radio 2 today:

1. Saturday Afternoon at the Opera (1 p.m. EST) features the Canadian Opera Company's fantastic production of Death in Venice by Benjamin Britten. We are also promised an interview with Toronto tenor Lawrence Wiliford regarding his new CD of Britten songs. Details here.

2. This evening, on The Signal (10 p.m. EST), you can catch a Soundstreams concert of choral music by Arvo Pärt and R. Murray Schafer featuring university voices, recorded earlier this fall at Koerner Hall. Details here.

CD Reviews: Two new discs of choral music a great way to escape the sturm und drang of December

These two reviews didn't make it into today's Star. For disc details on amazon.ca, click on the artists' names:

ERIC WHITACRE
Light & Gold (Decca)
*** (out of 4)
American Eric Whitacre is the It Boy of the choral world. Despite the fine work of the King’s Singers and dozens of other notable musicians on this disc, Whitacre’s name – and photos – get pride of place in the booklet (he looks like a kinder, gentler version of John Holloway’s Sawyer, from Lost). Whitacre’s successful formula is to combine very simple, affecting poetry with music that alternates between soaring soprano melodies and tightly clustered dissonant harmonies. Over the course of 16 tracks, the songs start sounding pretty much alike, but in a lulling, slow-moving way that turns out to be gently seductive. Note that the Elora Festival Singers recorded some of the same music with a bit more clarity earlier this year. That disc has been nominated for a Grammy.

BENEDICTINE NUNS OF NOTRE-DAME DE L’ANONCIATION
Voices: Chant from Avignon (Decca)
**** (out of 4)
From their recently-built abbey in the rolling hills of Provence in southern France, the young Benedictine Sisters of Our Lady of the Anunciation have made a CD of their daily musical prayers and meditations in Gregorian chant. Listened to without interruption, the gently undulating chants make for an unbeatable retreat from the stresses of a busy day or week – whether or not you pay attention to the Christian texts, sung in Latin. The booklet includes all the translations.

Here is a clip of the nuns singing verses 4 and 6 from Psalm 59:

I'd like to come to your concert. Will you give me complementary tickets?

This video, prepared by American vocal ensemble Octarium, is very preachy -- but also very true. I'm posting it to try to atone for the complementary tickets I get to concerts.

I contacted the Toronto Symphony and Canadian Opera Company several weeks to ask if they would divulge how much it actually costs to put on an opera, or a symphony concert. I thought it would be a great start to showing people how big the gap is between ticket prices and the actual cost of putting on performances.

Unfortunately, neither organization even bothered to reply to my request.

ADDENDA:
I received this email response from Toronto Symphony spokesperson Laura Quinn:

To your point about the cost of putting on a concert – it’s difficult to pin down. Costs of guest artists vary, the number of musicians on stage is different for each orchestration, and different production needs have different costs. The TSO also does so much more than presenting the public concerts that audiences see on stage – from commissioning new works, to the organization’s extensive education outreach programmes, which include a Northern Residency, 3 weeks of student concerts, in-school activities and a youth orchestra – all of these things are under the mandate and budget of the TSO.

To your initial question about how presenting a symphony is made possible by a combination of ticket sales, donations and grants, our Annual General Meeting media release outlines the organizations revenues for the 09.10 season: “For the 2009.2010 season, earned revenue including ticket sales, education and other revenue represented 47% of revenue; fundraising represented 22%; government operating grants accounted for 23%; and gifts from the Toronto Symphony Foundation and the Toronto Symphony Volunteer Committee accounted for 8% of revenue.”

It is very difficult to show what a TSO concert is actually worth in material terms, though our AGM and its accompanying materials aim to explain the financial activity of the TSO. What’s also difficult to show is what the TSO is worth in qualitative terms, like culture, emotion and aesthetics...

AND this response from Canadian Opera Company spokesperson Claudine Domingue:

Describing the budget for a “typical” opera is an extremely hard.  Operas come in all sizes and shapes and many, many factors contribute to that particular production’s budget  For example: orchestra, chorus and cast sizes vary dramatically; whether the production is a new one that the COC is building from scratch or co-producing with another company (thereby reducing the initial cost), or even renting from elsewhere (possibly reducing costs again); and, the relative size of an opera – length, design requirements, etc. (for example, generally a Wagner opera is most expensive to produce than an opera by Mozart – but even that may not always be true).  In short each production is completely different.  And, similar other arts organizations, the COC does not simply produce a mainstage season – we also present 75-80 free concerts per year, run over 20 education and outreach programs for all ages, and we run the oldest and most respected opera training program in the country, the Ensemble Studio.  All these and more are encompassed within our annual budget.

Overall, the Canadian Opera Company’s operating revenues (as outlined in our 2009/10 Annual Report available online,http://www.coc.ca/ExploreAndLearn/NewToOpera/OnlineLearningCentre/Publications.aspx, are fairly consistent year over year: 41% come from box office and ticket sales, 28% from fundraising, 19% from government grants, and 12% from other sources.  The Report outlines the range and depth of our activities as a whole company.

Opera’s “worth”, as anyone who has ever attended one will tell you, is entirely subjective and personal, however, the COC presents opera at the highest possible level, and that, surely, is worth a lot.

We have a choice of singalong Messiahs: passive watching tonight, or active singing on Dec. 19

Tafelmusik's annual Singalong Messiah at Massey Hall is an entrenched Toronto institution that's getting its moment of televised glory tonight at 9 p.m. (Eastern) on Bravo!

Recorded last spring at technologically friendly Koerner Hall, tonight's broadcast features a dream quartet of soloists -- soprano Suzie LeBlanc, countertenor Daniel Taylor, tenor Rufus Mueller (both men return as soloists for this year's Messiah run) and bass-baritone Locky Chung -- the excellent Tafelmusik orchestra and chamber choir and conductor Ivars Taurins hamming it up for all it's worth, dressed up as George Frideric Handel himself.

The audience makes a fantastic choir, sounding every bit like a well-prepared large choral society -- even without Taurins shouting out at the singers at the top of his voice.

The overture is overlaid by clips of the musicians getting ready backstage, and Taurins providing a bit of historical background as he gets into costume. It's too bad the oratorio has been cut substantially to accommodate the 90-minute format, as well as Taurins' commentary.

In my opinion, the real magic of the Singalong Messiah is in being there to participate in the choruses. It's just not the same watching it on TV, no matter how nicely done. However, this is a great way for someone who has never heard the oratorio to check out Messiah without having to commit to buying a ticket. It could be the start of a life-long love affair.

Tafelmusik is running its Singalong Messiah YouTube video contest for the second time. People can submit 2 minutes of video by Sunday to have a chance of winning four free tickets to the Massey Hall concert on Dec. 19 and well as a basket of other goodies. Check out the details here.

Here is the teaser video for tonight's broadcast:

One more flash Hallelujah Chorus, this time in Philadelphia

It's Hallelujah Chorus day! This one is from the old Wanamaker's department store in Philadelphia -- now a Macy's. The store's most famous fixture is a grand organ, one of the largest ever made, and still played regularly during prime shopping hours.

This flash Hallelujah Chorus is a bit less focused than the one in Wellang -- but at least it has the combined power of 650 voices, organized by Opera Company of Philadelphia: