Concert Review of Slavic Wonders
By Clarence Fanto
Berkshire Eagle
December 4, 2007
A choral repertoire is daring
GREAT BARRINGTON — It would be hard to find a more remote choral repertoire than the early Medieval and Renaissance-era chants and hymns of Poland, Bohemia and Russia. But the daring program presented by the Minneapolis-based Rose Ensemble at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on Saturday evening reaped handsome rewards for the group's second consecutive December engagement for the Close Encounters With Music series.
The concert promised "Slavic Wonders" as well as "Feasts and Saints in Early Moscow, Krakow and Prague," and in various combinations and permutations, the dozen Rose singers offered unison Gregorian-type chants by several anonymous Czech composers dating from the 11th through the 14th centuries; a richly harmonic, Baroque-era secular work by Vasily Titov, court composer for Peter the Great; and Latin motets by Polish composers of the late 16th and early 17th century.
As the irrepressible Rose Ensemble Founder and Artistic Director Jordan Sramek explained in his introductory remarks, these obscure works, from what can more accurately be described as Central Europe, have been unreasonably neglected and are just as musically worthwhile as the better-known Western choral repertoire.
He also cited the Italianate influences on Titov and several others by the Venetian composers of the era.
The vibrant, resplendent performances by the Rose singers — accompanied in some selections by the masterful Ginna Watson performing the vielle, a larger, five-string Medieval ancestor of the violin — made a strong case for the rather forbidding, monochromatic Czech and Polish hymns. Of even greater interest were the more complex hymns from the Russian Orthodox Service by Titov, and the Vespers and Evening Hymns by several Polish composers.
Sramek, a tenor in the group, translated his enthusiasm for the selections into a surprisingly varied, theatrical series of performances showcasing his singers in solos and in smaller groups interspersed with the full ensemble. Watson even had an instrumental solo, an anonymous 13th-century lamentation that became the 15th-century Polish national anthem.
The Rose Ensemble specializes in uncanny blend and rhythmic virtuosity that rivals some of the better-known unaccompanied choirs such as Chanticleer, the King's Singers, the now-disbanded Dale Warland Singers and Philip Brunelle's VocalEssence Chorus.
The sopranos — Kathy Lee, Kim Sueoka and Heather Cogswell — displayed superb technique during several especially challenging selections, and there were comparably impressive solo turns by bass Mark Dietrich and baritone Tim O'Brien, who doubled on percussion in "Let Us Clap Our Hands" by the mid-16th century, Krakow-based composer Miklolaj Gomolka.
Bringing the Russian choral tradition up to the present-day was a profoundly moving setting of "Ave Maria" by contemporary composer Sergey Khvoshchinskiy.
The work, commissioned by the Rose Ensemble, stretches the group to its limits as acknowledged by Sramek, who described the Minsk native, now based in Minneapolis, as an esteemed friend and colleague who likes to "play the accordion and drink vodka" when he's not composing or teaching. The performance of this brief gem was especially committed and, despite its pitfalls, technically secure.
Lurid legends of the saints — notably Wenceslaus, Duke of Bohemia — were recounted in readings by several of the performers, to the occasional amusement of the estimated 500 patrons at the Mahaiwe.
Sramek, noting that some listeners greet these tales with "deadpan" silence, thanked the audience for its appreciative laughter.
The evening was notable for its air of informality and the infectious sense of enthusiasm exhibited by the performers — all of which turned what could have been a rather ascetic program into one that will linger in the memory as an especially intriguing exploration of music rarely encountered.
Close Encounters impresario Yehuda Hanani, who spoke briefly to introduce the group, deserves credit for inviting these notable singers for a return engagement. The Rose Ensemble provided detailed written notes, texts and translations — a first-class presentation on all counts.