VAE Updates British Cathedral Tradition

It was pure serendipity – not Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding – that led Vocal Arts Ensemble music director Donald Nally to choose Hubert Parry’s “I Was Glad” as the encore for the group's final concert of the season Sunday afternoon at Armstrong Chapel in Indian Hill.  (The same anthem served as Kate’s processional for the May 6 royal wedding.)

It was just the right touch to end a concert of British cathedral music.  The title was “The British Cathedral Music Explosion” and the music was all 20^th and 21^st-century, in keeping with the VAE’s focus on music of our time.  Indeed, the earliest compositions dated from 1949 and 1953, “Welcome, Sweet and Sacred Feast” and “My Lovely One” by Gerald Finzi (1901-1956).  The latest was “Now Have I Known, O Lord,” composed in 2006 by Gabriel Jackson.  There is a Renaissance of church music going on in the British Isles right now, with composers like Jackson, James MacMillan and Jonathan Harvey, all of whom were represented on the program.

Joining the 23-member choir, the premier choral ensemble in the tristate area, was VAE organist Christina Haan, performing on Armstrong Chapel’s fine new pipe organ.  (The organ will be formally dedicated  on a special concert at 2:30 p.m. May 22 by organists Stacey Haney, Peggy Johnson and Chuck Peery.)  The result was majestic, intimate and inspiring, all at the same time.

The concert opened with Finzi’s motet “Welcome, Sweet and Sacred Feast” from “The Holy Communion” by 17^th-century metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan.  Declamatory in style and pervaded by a sense of urgency, it bespoke troubled times then and now (the British Civil Wars, the war-torn mid-20^th century).  Finzi’s “My Lovely One,” written for a wedding ceremony, was short, sweet and positively mushy by contrast.

Harvey’s “The Angels” (1994) had a truly angelic effect, with a quartet of VAE singers intoning Bishop John V. Taylor’s vivid lines about “intelligences old as the sunrise” against wordless choir.  Herbert Howell’s “Sequence for Saint Michael” (1961) on a medieval Latin lyric by Alcuin of York (ninth century) made a powerful impression, seeming to waft up like incense at the end.

MacMillan’s “A Child’s Prayer,” written in homage to the victims of the Dunblane School shootings in 1996, featured a pair of treble (soprano) voices plaintively singing “Welcome Jesu” before being swallowed up in “Joy and love” by the choir for a deeply touching effect.

This was followed by MacMillan’s “A New Song” (1997), in strophic style with Gaelic ornamentation, and a large role for Haan on the organ.

One of the most powerful works on the program was Francis Pott’s “My Song is Love Unknown” (2002), a setting from “The Young Man’s Meditation” by 17^th-century hymnist Samuel Crossman.  Woven through the text about the Savior’s sacrifice is the word “crucify,” at first barely noticeable, but reaching a kind of bedlam along with the organ in response to “resounding all the day hosannas to their King.”  The VAE sang it with a great sense of drama, full and rich on the last verse, “Here might I stay and sing,” and coming to a quiet “Amen.”

Final work on the program was Jackson’s “Now I Have Known, O Lord” to verses by Al-Junaid, a 10^th century Sufi mystic that spoke of eternal union.

“I was not planning to seize the moment,” Nally told the crowd as he introduced the Parry anthem (“I Was Glad”).  It was a moment to remember, nonetheless, the VAE like a wall of sound on the opening declaration and Haan triumphant on the organ.

The VAE’s 2011-2012 season was announced at the concert.  There will be five concerts, including a new mid-summer event planned for mid-July, 2012 (details to be announced).

The season opens Oct. 23 with “American icons at 100,” celebrating the centenaries of Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti.

Also:

Dec. 10 and 11.  “Candles, Carols, Contemplations,” the VAE’s annual Christmas concert.

March 18.  Collaboration with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (details to be announced).

April 29. VAE and concert:nova: “Listening to Liberation,” a world premiere commission on words of Nigerian poet Wole Soyinka, plus works by David Lang, Philip Lasser and Alvin Singleton on freedom and emancipation.