Järvi, May Festival Chorus Make Mozart Vivid

   How's your Latin?
   Gloria Deo. The May Festival Chorus' is fine.
   The 140-member chorus, splendidly prepared by chorus director Robert Porco, demonstrated that and much more in Mozart's Mass in C Minor ("The Great") with Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Friday night at Music Hall.
   It was the chorus' first performance with Järvi and the CSO of a major choral/orchestra work, not as an element of an opera, symphony or other orchestral work. Their collaboration resulted in a vivid transmission of the letter and spirit of Mozart's justly titled work.
   Soloists were sopranos Christine Brewer and Mary Wilson, tenor Stanford Olsen and bass Eric Owens.
   Also on the program were works by two members of the so-called "Second Viennese School," Anton Webern and Alban Berg (Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were the First). This was no attempt to pair "difficult" with familiar music. Nothing could be more palatable than Webern's 1904 "Im Sommerwind" ("In the Summer Wind"), a late romantic effusion of breathtaking beauty written before the composer abandoned tonality for 12-tone composition. Ditto Berg's 1907 "Seven Early Songs," which look back to Mahler and Richard Strauss.
   Never mind the seasonal disconnect, "Im Sommerwind" was magical. Subtitled "Idyll for Large Orchestra," it rose like the faintest breeze in the low strings, waxing and waning in gusts of variegated color. Two melodic fragments, a frisky one announced by the clarinet and a more languorous one by the horn, were woven throughout. The unusual instrumentation, including four clarinets, six horns and a smattering of carefully chosen percussion, allowed for some wonderful impressionistic effects.
   Dedicated to his wife, Berg's Seven Songs dwell upon love, sometimes voluptuously so. "Nacht" ("Night") was the most challenging, but only barely so, since its vague harmonies cast a truly nocturnal spell. "Schilflied" ("Song Amongst the Reeds") was markedly Mahlerian and Brewer floated some delicate high notes in "Traumgekrönt" ("Crowned in a Dream").
   There were tinkles of celeste at the end of "Im Zimmer" ("Indoors") - perhaps sparks from a hearth in autumn - and Brewer's voice took on a port wine shade in the yearning "Liebesode" ("Ode to Love").
   The Mass, written to honor Mozart's bride Constanze, commenced with an emphatic "Kyrie." One was instantly riveted on the voices and attention never lagged throughout the 50-minute work. Theirs was no musty worn-out Latin, but crisp, compelling and fraught with meaning. "Gloria" meant just that, as did "Hosanna," and the softest, most affecting texts in the somber, Handelian "Qui tollis" projected clearly.
   Wilson tended to go sharp in her upper register, but her pure, sweet voice was well matched to her solos, especially the lovely "Et Incarnatus." Brewer's heavier voice lacked flexibility, though she handled Mozart's wide soprano range effectively, especially on her lowest notes. She and Wilson handed off pitches delightfully in their duet "Domine Deus."
   Olsen was pewter-toned and commanding in the work's ensemble numbers. Owens came across magisterially as well, though he had to wait until nearly the end, in the quartet "Benedictus."
   Repeat is 8 tonight at Music Hall
(first published in The Cincinnati Post Jan. 27, 2007)